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If Tesla backed down on the Autopilot branding and called the feature what it is, fancy cruise control (Cruise+ maybe?) they wouldn’t have to have a PR battle e

If Tesla backed down on the Autopilot branding and called the feature what it is, fancy cruise control (Cruise+ maybe?) they wouldn’t have to have a PR battle every time something like this happens. It’s way too late for that now though unfortunately.

vl 7y ago
Traditional autopilot is a fancy cruise control for the airplane, so name is actually pretty apt.
- a_bonobo 7y ago
  I don't think this argument counts, drivers are not airplane pilots and don't know the airplane lingo
  - jonathankoren 7y ago
    Also, that's not what public perception of what "autopilot" means.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
It is ironic because autopilots on airplanes are actually really simple, but somehow when the term is applied to cars people expect abilities that airplane autopilots have never historically had.
- mrob 7y ago
  From Wikipedia's "Autopilot" page: >In 1947 a US Air Force C-54 made a transatlantic flight, including takeoff and landing, completely under the control of an autopilot. Airplane autopilots are already at the fully autonomous stage. They have the advantage of air traffic control removing obstacles from their path, but IMO this just means ATC is part of the autopilot system. An autopilot is something that gets you from point A to point B with no input from the pilot/driver, and if it's not capable of doing that reliably then it's not an autopilot.
  - kolinko 7y ago
    Er, you made a jump from „there were some flights that were done 100% on Autopilot” to „airplane autopilots are completely reliable”.
    - mrob 7y ago
      Airplane autopilots require human intervention only in rare emergency scenarios. Tesla's "autopilot" requires human intervention as standard. I don't think it deserves the name.
      - w0utert 7y ago
        Define ‘rare’... I remember reading plane autopilot ‘disengagements’ aren’t actually rare or uncommon but happen 1000s of times every day worldwide. Also, this is completely ignoring that a) autopilot doesn’t work at all without lots of infrastructure on the ground (try landing on autopilot when the airport ILS is down or absent, for example), and b) there’s a non-trivial set of flight conditions in which autopilot cannot be used at all. People really should stop comparing plane autopilot to autonomous cars, the technologicalies share almost no similarities whatsoever. Plane autopilot doesn’t do any object recognition, AI, machine learning, adapting to the environment, etc. At the very best it will tell you when there’s another plane flying too close (based on an explicit location sent from the other plane or the ground), or when you almost run into the ground. That’s it. Everything else the autopilot does is just setting the flight controls to follow a preset path, and ensure the plane stays within the flight envelope.
        notahacker 7y ago
        > People really should stop comparing plane autopilot to autonomous cars Agreed, but it's Tesla doing that for marketing purposes that's the cause of these comparisons, not the people objecting to Tesla doing that for marketing purposes. Aircraft autopilot systems are relatively simple systems with a lot of instrument support and redundancy that relieve pilots of the need to hold a yoke in normal flight (with the latter bit being what the public tends to focus on). Tesla offers extremely complex software which makes more decisions based on less straightforward inputs and relies entirely on the driver holding the controls at all times in case it makes a bad decision.
- EmpirePhoenix 7y ago
  Most autopilots (especially) on smaller planes will happily crash you into buildings without a second thought. If we had a similar central automotive control, planes can rely on this would rarely happen
- kurtisc 7y ago
  I'd describe it as less simple than adaptive cruise control in the clouds: they can put planes in holding patterns.
- SigmundA 7y ago
  When your traffic lane is mostly a straight line in 3D and measured in 1000's of feet rather than just a few feet autopilot mostly just needs to maintain heading and speed. You can get autopilots for boats as well and they can even do collision avoidance using radar, but its non obstructed 2D space with no real lanes in open water and lanes measured in 100's of feet in or more in channels. Cars share such close proximity with obstructed curved paths that makes a safe "autopilot" orders of magnitude more complex which should be obvious. There is just no comparison due to the space constraints cars must navigate actively.
lazyjones 7y ago
> they wouldn’t have to have a PR battle every time something like this happens Perhaps a PR battle is better than no PR at all.
sjwright 7y ago
Imagine a driver driving down a parkway at speed and thinking "I'm on a parkway, so I should shift the car into Park." That's how dumb this argument is. If a driver ignores the requirements of their driver license AND the vehicle's clearly worded warnings, then the driver is entirely responsible. Claiming that the driver is not at fault because they interpreted the word "autopilot" to mean "I can disregard my responsibility as a driver and ignore the vehicle's very clear warnings" is deeply absurd.
- Angostura 7y ago
  > That's how dumb this argument is. So, no problem changing the name then - because in your opinion the name isn't effecting the purchaser or driver expectations.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    That isn’t something you can extrapolate from what I wrote, but yes, of course they could change the name with minimal real consequences. They could name it Jeff.
- obeattie 7y ago
  The question of whether the driver should have had their hands on the wheel (clearly they should have) is distinct from the question of whether the Autopilot should have avoided this crash.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    In fact, the driver should have had his eyes on the road, in order to have the degree of attentiveness that Tesla always claims was missing whenever this sort of crash occurs. Tesla cars are unable to detect whether the driver is doing that, and if they did, it would make clear that this technology is nowhere near as complete as Tesla claims.
    - yeahitslikethat 7y ago
mshook 7y ago
Meh, there were plenty of similar stories when cruise control became a thing: people stuck travelling at high speed, people crashing too fast into things, etc.
pooya13 7y ago
Cruise control is just a simple control loop. AP provides much more functionality (both for convenience and safety). That would be similar to calling an automobile a carriage+.

vl 7y ago

Traditional autopilot is a fancy cruise control for the airplane, so name is actually pretty apt.

a_bonobo 7y ago
I don't think this argument counts, drivers are not airplane pilots and don't know the airplane lingo
- jonathankoren 7y ago
  Also, that's not what public perception of what "autopilot" means.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

It is ironic because autopilots on airplanes are actually really simple, but somehow when the term is applied to cars people expect abilities that airplane autopilots have never historically had.

mrob 7y ago
From Wikipedia's "Autopilot" page: >In 1947 a US Air Force C-54 made a transatlantic flight, including takeoff and landing, completely under the control of an autopilot. Airplane autopilots are already at the fully autonomous stage. They have the advantage of air traffic control removing obstacles from their path, but IMO this just means ATC is part of the autopilot system. An autopilot is something that gets you from point A to point B with no input from the pilot/driver, and if it's not capable of doing that reliably then it's not an autopilot.
- kolinko 7y ago
  Er, you made a jump from „there were some flights that were done 100% on Autopilot” to „airplane autopilots are completely reliable”.
  - mrob 7y ago
    Airplane autopilots require human intervention only in rare emergency scenarios. Tesla's "autopilot" requires human intervention as standard. I don't think it deserves the name.
    - w0utert 7y ago
      Define ‘rare’... I remember reading plane autopilot ‘disengagements’ aren’t actually rare or uncommon but happen 1000s of times every day worldwide. Also, this is completely ignoring that a) autopilot doesn’t work at all without lots of infrastructure on the ground (try landing on autopilot when the airport ILS is down or absent, for example), and b) there’s a non-trivial set of flight conditions in which autopilot cannot be used at all. People really should stop comparing plane autopilot to autonomous cars, the technologicalies share almost no similarities whatsoever. Plane autopilot doesn’t do any object recognition, AI, machine learning, adapting to the environment, etc. At the very best it will tell you when there’s another plane flying too close (based on an explicit location sent from the other plane or the ground), or when you almost run into the ground. That’s it. Everything else the autopilot does is just setting the flight controls to follow a preset path, and ensure the plane stays within the flight envelope.
      - notahacker 7y ago
        > People really should stop comparing plane autopilot to autonomous cars Agreed, but it's Tesla doing that for marketing purposes that's the cause of these comparisons, not the people objecting to Tesla doing that for marketing purposes. Aircraft autopilot systems are relatively simple systems with a lot of instrument support and redundancy that relieve pilots of the need to hold a yoke in normal flight (with the latter bit being what the public tends to focus on). Tesla offers extremely complex software which makes more decisions based on less straightforward inputs and relies entirely on the driver holding the controls at all times in case it makes a bad decision.
EmpirePhoenix 7y ago
Most autopilots (especially) on smaller planes will happily crash you into buildings without a second thought. If we had a similar central automotive control, planes can rely on this would rarely happen
kurtisc 7y ago
I'd describe it as less simple than adaptive cruise control in the clouds: they can put planes in holding patterns.
SigmundA 7y ago
When your traffic lane is mostly a straight line in 3D and measured in 1000's of feet rather than just a few feet autopilot mostly just needs to maintain heading and speed. You can get autopilots for boats as well and they can even do collision avoidance using radar, but its non obstructed 2D space with no real lanes in open water and lanes measured in 100's of feet in or more in channels. Cars share such close proximity with obstructed curved paths that makes a safe "autopilot" orders of magnitude more complex which should be obvious. There is just no comparison due to the space constraints cars must navigate actively.

lazyjones 7y ago

> they wouldn’t have to have a PR battle every time something like this happens Perhaps a PR battle is better than no PR at all.

sjwright 7y ago

Imagine a driver driving down a parkway at speed and thinking "I'm on a parkway, so I should shift the car into Park." That's how dumb this argument is. If a driver ignores the requirements of their driver license AND the vehicle's clearly worded warnings, then the driver is entirely responsible. Claiming that the driver is not at fault because they interpreted the word "autopilot" to mean "I can disregard my responsibility as a driver and ignore the vehicle's very clear warnings" is deeply absurd.

Angostura 7y ago
> That's how dumb this argument is. So, no problem changing the name then - because in your opinion the name isn't effecting the purchaser or driver expectations.
- sjwright 7y ago
  That isn’t something you can extrapolate from what I wrote, but yes, of course they could change the name with minimal real consequences. They could name it Jeff.
obeattie 7y ago
The question of whether the driver should have had their hands on the wheel (clearly they should have) is distinct from the question of whether the Autopilot should have avoided this crash.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  In fact, the driver should have had his eyes on the road, in order to have the degree of attentiveness that Tesla always claims was missing whenever this sort of crash occurs. Tesla cars are unable to detect whether the driver is doing that, and if they did, it would make clear that this technology is nowhere near as complete as Tesla claims.
  - yeahitslikethat 7y ago

mshook 7y ago

Meh, there were plenty of similar stories when cruise control became a thing: people stuck travelling at high speed, people crashing too fast into things, etc.

pooya13 7y ago

Cruise control is just a simple control loop. AP provides much more functionality (both for convenience and safety). That would be similar to calling an automobile a carriage+.