4 ms·

More Tesla PR. It reminds me of Musk's post on the autopilot after those crashes: 'Tesla drivers have fewer accidents than the average American driver!' Yeah, t

by gwern 9y ago

More Tesla PR. It reminds me of Musk's post on the autopilot after those crashes: 'Tesla drivers have fewer accidents than the average American driver!' Yeah, that's great, but that's not the question that was being asked, now was it?

Judgmentality 9y ago
As much as I agree with you, it's clearly working for the overall public as most of the world still has a love affair with Tesla (just look at their stock price).
paulddraper 9y ago
What was the question bring asked?
- gambiting 9y ago
  "why do you have a feature that cannot see an obstacle in the middle of the road called autopilot?" Answering this with "it crashes less than your average driver!" is not an answer to that question, despite being true. If a Boeing plane crashes on autopilot, Boeing cannot dismiss questions about safety of the system by saying "hey, our planes on autopilot crash less than manually controlled planes!", even though that is true.
  - paulddraper 9y ago
    I don't think anyone was asking "What is the purpose in having a bug in your autopilot?" I think people were asking "Is your autopilot actually dependable/safe?" And that latter question is what Musk was responding to.
    - legolas2412 9y ago
      He didn't really answer about autopilot. He said that Tesla are safer cars (due to reasons not related to being autopilot).
  - amluto 9y ago
    I test drove an HW2 autopilot Tesla a few months ago. It tried to crash about every hundred feet. It wouldn't have killed me, but it certainly would have caused quite a few thousand dollars of damage. Supposedly it works better now.
- gwern 9y ago
  The question being asked is, 'are Tesla drivers less safe using the Autopilot than the same drivers would be without the Autopilot?' The question being answered is, 'are Tesla drivers safer than non-Tesla drivers?'
Someone 9y ago
If you're referring to https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss, that doesn't even claim "Tesla drivers have fewer accidents than the average American driver"; all it claims is that it has fewer fatalities. That isn't surprising, given that larger and newer cars tend to be safer, and that the average American driver was driving a smaller and older car than the average Tesla driver (possibly on average on worse roads, too, but I'm not sure about that)

by gwern 9y ago

Judgmentality 9y ago

As much as I agree with you, it's clearly working for the overall public as most of the world still has a love affair with Tesla (just look at their stock price).

paulddraper 9y ago

What was the question bring asked?

gambiting 9y ago
"why do you have a feature that cannot see an obstacle in the middle of the road called autopilot?" Answering this with "it crashes less than your average driver!" is not an answer to that question, despite being true. If a Boeing plane crashes on autopilot, Boeing cannot dismiss questions about safety of the system by saying "hey, our planes on autopilot crash less than manually controlled planes!", even though that is true.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  I don't think anyone was asking "What is the purpose in having a bug in your autopilot?" I think people were asking "Is your autopilot actually dependable/safe?" And that latter question is what Musk was responding to.
  - legolas2412 9y ago
    He didn't really answer about autopilot. He said that Tesla are safer cars (due to reasons not related to being autopilot).
- amluto 9y ago
  I test drove an HW2 autopilot Tesla a few months ago. It tried to crash about every hundred feet. It wouldn't have killed me, but it certainly would have caused quite a few thousand dollars of damage. Supposedly it works better now.
gwern 9y ago
The question being asked is, 'are Tesla drivers less safe using the Autopilot than the same drivers would be without the Autopilot?' The question being answered is, 'are Tesla drivers safer than non-Tesla drivers?'

Someone 9y ago

If you're referring to https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss, that doesn't even claim "Tesla drivers have fewer accidents than the average American driver"; all it claims is that it has fewer fatalities. That isn't surprising, given that larger and newer cars tend to be safer, and that the average American driver was driving a smaller and older car than the average Tesla driver (possibly on average on worse roads, too, but I'm not sure about that)