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The Tesla in the recent accident you reference did not “suddenly steer into” the divider. As other owners have since shown, the car centered itself between what

by nnf 8y ago

The Tesla in the recent accident you reference did not “suddenly steer into” the divider. As other owners have since shown, the car centered itself between what it interpreted as lane markers marking a lane but which were actually two outside markers diverging as the highway split. Edit: while the end result of both “steered into” and “failed to avoid” an obstacle are the same, the method is very different. If a car suddenly steers into an obstacle, an attentive driver might not be able to react quickly enough to avoid it, whereas driving straight into something the car fails to see is very unlikely with an attentive driver.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
You're splitting hairs on the definition of "suddenly". It only took a couple seconds for the Tesla to go off the main road's path and drive straight into the divider.
- userbinator 8y ago
  There's a video of someone reproducing this (and not crashing) on YouTube --- he managed to stop the car in time, but still came awfully close to the divider, and this is someone who was likely paying a lot more attention at the time than the typical autopilot user. To have to fight the autopilot and correct the wrong decisions it sometimes makes is what makes it scarier than manual driving, since in the latter case you don't have to fight where the car goes --- unless the steering/suspension is defective or the road is very uneven, it will go in a straight line with no driver input.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
> whereas driving straight into something the car fails to see is very unlikely with an attentive driver. So then what is the point of Autopilot at all? I'm a big fan of Tesla, and I've wanted to try Autopilot for years, but after I saw that YouTube video of the driver needing to slam on the breaks to barely avoid hitting the divider, I thought "no thanks". If Autopilot dangerously lulls you into a false sense of security, I'd rather drive manually where I'm forced to be attentive.

by nnf 8y ago

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

You're splitting hairs on the definition of "suddenly". It only took a couple seconds for the Tesla to go off the main road's path and drive straight into the divider.

userbinator 8y ago
There's a video of someone reproducing this (and not crashing) on YouTube --- he managed to stop the car in time, but still came awfully close to the divider, and this is someone who was likely paying a lot more attention at the time than the typical autopilot user. To have to fight the autopilot and correct the wrong decisions it sometimes makes is what makes it scarier than manual driving, since in the latter case you don't have to fight where the car goes --- unless the steering/suspension is defective or the road is very uneven, it will go in a straight line with no driver input.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

> whereas driving straight into something the car fails to see is very unlikely with an attentive driver. So then what is the point of Autopilot at all? I'm a big fan of Tesla, and I've wanted to try Autopilot for years, but after I saw that YouTube video of the driver needing to slam on the breaks to barely avoid hitting the divider, I thought "no thanks". If Autopilot dangerously lulls you into a false sense of security, I'd rather drive manually where I'm forced to be attentive.