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You needed to do at least read the minimal manual provided in the car's screen or on the web at tesla.com. Autopilot does not stop at stop signs or for people.

You needed to do at least read the minimal manual provided in the car's screen or on the web at tesla.com. Autopilot does not stop at stop signs or for people. You can't use it to drive the car when you are drunk. It's not for merging lanes. The things it does are following lanes as they curve, slowing down on curves, and detecting a car in front of you and slowing down. They have demonstrated other things, but it's not a full autopilot. The volume can be controlled by the spinning dials in the steering wheel. The supercharging stations charge just as they were advertised. When the car is mostly empty, they charge faster, and as the battery is more full they have to slow down the charging rate. This is how they are defined to work. The door handles are slightly difficult to use. It's not for everyone, and it's no crime not to like some things about it. But using the autopilot without understanding it's limitations could have lead to death for someone.

xltk 8y ago
Neither the onboard screen nor the person I was renting from made clear the limitations you describe. If the limitations are indeed that dangerous, more effort should be made to make them abundantly clear instead of requiring a user to search for them. Furthermore, the brand name of the technology is "Autopilot" and the copy from Tesla’s own website is as follows: "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver" Based on my experience, that sentence is extremely misleading. I stand corrected on physical controls for volume. No such controls exist for airflow as far as I know. Regarding supercharging times, both the renter and other sources I've read online cite a full charge (over 300 miles) taking 75 - 80 minutes. I got 59 kWh (about 200 miles at a conversion rate of 3.25 miles/kWh) in 2+ hours of charging.
- Latteland 8y ago
  I agree with you that they should be much more explicit about this autopilot stuff and the name autopilot is very misleading. The other thing they say on their website (https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no) is this longish quote: "Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available". But I can imagine you are just in the car and you don't have immediate access to that. A normal car's cruise control doesn't steer on most cars, and people don't expect it to. Because of all the hype around teslas its not surprising that you could think it could do all that stuff. But it's not trivial to turn on the autopilot, did you get that from the person who gave you the car? I think they could have explained it. I'm happy that you were not hurt nor was anyone else. Tesla could be more explicit about this. I guess it's another thing that you learn from experience, and they do talk about it but it's not obvious but when the car is more full, they charge the batteries at a slower rate, they can only charge them at a rate based on how close they are to full. I know that's confusing, that's just how they work. If you use the trip planner in the car, it will route you through the super chargers and tell you how long to stay at each one and what the likely % of charge will be. I traveled from Seattle to Banff and the superchargers have been placed at a good distance apart so that I never need to charge more than about 75%. I hope if you ever try another EV that the people renting it to you provide proper instructions so that you can drive it safely.
  - xltk 8y ago
    Thanks, to be clear I tried Autopilot's street capabilities in a non-busy area, so the risk of anyone getting hurt was pretty low. I'm still bullish on electric/hybrid cars and plan to get one in the future. Appreciate the extra info on supercharging, good to know. I think the misunderstanding of Autopilot came from a few things: - The hype you mention around Tesla and some of the language they use. - My own mistake in conflating self-driving technologies that Google, Uber, Lyft (Cruise), etc. are working on with Tesla's. - Videos like this posted on Tesla's site two years ago: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-tesla-cars https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-.... Notice the car fully stops at intersections in that video.

xltk 8y ago

Neither the onboard screen nor the person I was renting from made clear the limitations you describe. If the limitations are indeed that dangerous, more effort should be made to make them abundantly clear instead of requiring a user to search for them. Furthermore, the brand name of the technology is "Autopilot" and the copy from Tesla’s own website is as follows: "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars. All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver" Based on my experience, that sentence is extremely misleading. I stand corrected on physical controls for volume. No such controls exist for airflow as far as I know. Regarding supercharging times, both the renter and other sources I've read online cite a full charge (over 300 miles) taking 75 - 80 minutes. I got 59 kWh (about 200 miles at a conversion rate of 3.25 miles/kWh) in 2+ hours of charging.

Latteland 8y ago
I agree with you that they should be much more explicit about this autopilot stuff and the name autopilot is very misleading. The other thing they say on their website (https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/AUTOPILOT?redirect=no) is this longish quote: "Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available". But I can imagine you are just in the car and you don't have immediate access to that. A normal car's cruise control doesn't steer on most cars, and people don't expect it to. Because of all the hype around teslas its not surprising that you could think it could do all that stuff. But it's not trivial to turn on the autopilot, did you get that from the person who gave you the car? I think they could have explained it. I'm happy that you were not hurt nor was anyone else. Tesla could be more explicit about this. I guess it's another thing that you learn from experience, and they do talk about it but it's not obvious but when the car is more full, they charge the batteries at a slower rate, they can only charge them at a rate based on how close they are to full. I know that's confusing, that's just how they work. If you use the trip planner in the car, it will route you through the super chargers and tell you how long to stay at each one and what the likely % of charge will be. I traveled from Seattle to Banff and the superchargers have been placed at a good distance apart so that I never need to charge more than about 75%. I hope if you ever try another EV that the people renting it to you provide proper instructions so that you can drive it safely.
- xltk 8y ago
  Thanks, to be clear I tried Autopilot's street capabilities in a non-busy area, so the risk of anyone getting hurt was pretty low. I'm still bullish on electric/hybrid cars and plan to get one in the future. Appreciate the extra info on supercharging, good to know. I think the misunderstanding of Autopilot came from a few things: - The hype you mention around Tesla and some of the language they use. - My own mistake in conflating self-driving technologies that Google, Uber, Lyft (Cruise), etc. are working on with Tesla's. - Videos like this posted on Tesla's site two years ago: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-tesla-cars https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-.... Notice the car fully stops at intersections in that video.