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Maybe I misunderstood but why was the vehicle doing 68mph on a 55mph road? Is that the driver's fault or autopilot? Perhaps they should rename it to assisted d

Maybe I misunderstood but why was the vehicle doing 68mph on a 55mph road? Is that the driver's fault or autopilot? Perhaps they should rename it to assisted driving or something like that. I think I saw something about someone sleeping while on autopilot. There's only so much parenting the manufacturer of the car can do. The ethics of all this are much more complex of course - but perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control as opposed to you can go to sleep, the car can drive itself.

Shivetya 7y ago
As an owner and autonomous driving fan I keep asking the same question. Will autonomous cars be legislated to always obey the law or will that still be a judgment left to the driver if the car can be driven either way. I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact your speeding for the systems that can read speed limit signs in addition to have current maps.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  It seems inevitable that autonomous vehicles will be required to obey speed limits in the future. The question in my mind is will it be the same speed limits as for humans?
  - tastroder 7y ago
    I don't see how that is even a question without 100% autonomy and proven above-human performance, human drivers on the same roads still have to react so different speed limits don't seem to make much sense.
    - nightski 7y ago
      Well seeing as you can get a ticket for going at or under the speed limit in some major cities because it is a hazard that might be interesting.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        I believe the law in NY state uses the phrase "impeding traffic" and doesn't reference the speed limit. So (although I am not a lawyer) I imagine you could violate it whether you were going under, at, or over, the limit.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Yes, because: 1) I don't believe we'll go "autonomous cars only" for predictable future. I can see that happening on limited set of streets(say, strict city centres), but not overall. Mostly because I think requiring everyone to buy an autonomous car is ridiculous, and then there are cars made even right now that I can totally see people driving in 20/30/50 years from now. We'll always allow manual cars on the road, just like we still allow horses - it just became so rare that in practice it's not an issue to have an animal with no safety features on the road next to modern motor vehicles. 2) there will always be users of the road that cannot be made automous - motorcycles. Unless you believe that motorcycles will be banned, but I don't think that will happen. So yes, I think any speed limits of the future will be set for humans first and foremost. I do look forward to those speed limits to be revised up though - cars are far safer and more efficient at higher speeds than they were few decades ago, and yet speed limits have never been revised to reflect that. US is particularly bad at this, with empty stretches of straight road having a speed limit of 50mph for instance. That should have been fixed years ago.
  - cesarb 7y ago
    We already have different speed limits for different users in some highways (for instance, one major highway near where I live has a limit in some places of 110 km/h for cars and 90 km/h for trucks and buses), so there's precedent. But I believe that, at least initially, speed limits for self-driving vehicles will be lower.
- gambiting 7y ago
  >>I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact your speeding for the systems that can read speed limit signs in addition to have current maps. Well, there are systems that do this. Many new cars have speed limit sign recognition built in and they will display the current limit on the dashboard(and sometimes show you an icon indicating that the vehicle thinks you are speeding). The reason why this is not more aggressive is because it's only seemingly a simple problem - in reality it's far far from it. In my experience of driving around the EU - I had a Mercedes CLS(brand new 2019 model) with adaptive cruise control and speed limit signs recognition, and while amazing when it worked, it worked maybe 50% of the time. Issues I noticed: 1) it kept detecting speed limit signs on roads parallel to the one I was on [0] 2) it kept detecting speed limit signs on side roads - leading to actual dangerous situations, because I was on a 50mph road, going past a 20mph side street and the car would suddenly hit the brakes because it detected a 20mph speed limit. That's 10000% unnacceptable in a production vehicle. [1] 3) it kept reading speed limit signs on the slip roads leaving the motorway - so you're doing 70mph on the motorway, and it suddenly reads the 50mph speed limit that's for the motorway exit. Same problem as with point 2. 4) In situations where there are no speed limit signs, it would use the map data - and even though this was a brand new, March 2019 vehicle, it had no idea that a stretch of motorway next to my house is not limited to 50mph anymore, and hasn't been for the last 2 years. In practice, I had to keep overriding the speed limit chosen by the car constantly, and after few days I switched it fully off as it led to me nearly shitting my pants as the car hit the brakes for seemingly no reason whatsoever few times. And then I have concerns about countries where the speed limit is only valid to the nearest intersection - and the definition of an intersection varies. There are paved roads merging with the main road which are not intersections because the side road leads to private property, and then there are dirt tracks which are intersections because technically it's a public road open to motor traffic. There are no signs to indicate either - the driver is just "supposed to know". It's idiotic, I know. And in some countries(Poland) the speed limit can change as often as 4-5 times in a span of a single kilometre. What's even worse is that there are situations when the speed limit can actually increase(!!!!) the speed limit set in a certain zone(built-up zones have a 50km/h speed limit, but this can be increased by a regular speed limit sign - and then yes, it goes back down(!!!) to 50km/h after an intersection). All of this stuff would be incredibly hard to code into a system like this, and it's one of the reasons why I suspect the proposal made by EU to have automatic speed limiters built into cars will either fail, or people will just keep disabling it altogether, making the whole idea pointless. [0] Here it would think the side road has a speed limit of 50mph, because it would read the wrong sign: https://www.google.pl/maps/@54.9929676,-1.5788994,3a,75y,78.69h,85.53t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssEpcslIqt97nfVrtZtQYhA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.pl/maps/@54.9929676,-1.5788994,3a,75y,78.... [1] Here for example the 20mph sign is placed at an angle to the road, so the car would read it going past it - and set the adaptive cruise control to 20mph which is incorrect for this street: https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0074774,-1.615172,3a,41.3y,90.87h,86.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5WsAtaR3hv8QI1b5PG371w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0074774,-1.615172,3a,41.3y,90... Same here: https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0071611,-1.6214135,3a,75y,240.68h,82.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9NH6vTDZaU5smuIYopqBMQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0071611,-1.6214135,3a,75y,240...
- kristopolous 7y ago
  I'm only half joking when I call for a bloodlust dial with a murder level on it. The core idea is to continue to grant enough agency to the operator that they are held responsible as long as the vehicle faithfully executed the intent. The tongue and cheek bloodsport throttle in the real world would instead be a proactive user choice of how much human guidance and interaction is required (solving the handoff problem, for example, 1 minute automatic, 1 minute manual or an automatic system that you'll need to irritatingly press a button every few minutes to stay engaged). If a user options for "zero engagement" (let's pretend they're drunk or just got out of surgery), then there has to be a visceral experience of the underlying risks; a constant beeping and flashing, some real sense of urgency and warning. I know it's a luxury product but cars are machines of carnage where death is never more than a mistake and mere seconds away. That reality should supercede. This may be eventually removed, but a system like this would honestly solve all the current issues
  - noxToken 7y ago
    >an automatic system that you'll need to irritatingly press a button every few minutes to stay engaged Just like trains! There is an alarm system just as you describe. After a certain amount of time, there are audio and visual warnings for the engineer. The engineer must engage the switch to "snooze" the alarm, and in the event that the engineer does not engage, the train automatically cuts power to throttle to brake. I'm not sure flashing lights and a klaxon are what we would want in a car, but maybe beeping akin to lane assist that quickly increases in volume + a light on the dash would be a good start.
    - Domenic_S 7y ago
      It works that way in a Tesla. If the system doesn't detect your hands on the wheel (using rotational force on the steering wheel as a proxy), first a message appears on the screen, then seconds later the screen flashes blue, then a few seconds later the volume on the radio is lowered and the car beeps at you urgently. If you still don't touch the wheel, a few seconds later the hazard lights come on and the car slows to a stop.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  > I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact you['re] speeding Europe is mandating this (combined with limiting) for new cars soon. It will be possible to override 'temporarily'.
leesec 7y ago
I think this is a tired argument. Every time you turn it on it says please be ready to take over at any time. It gives constant messaging that your hand needs to be on the wheel. No one driving it should think that you can fall asleep. A better angle would be that, some people who were gonna fall asleep anyways, had their lives saved.
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  It seems like more people will fall asleep due to a false sense of security than would have fallen asleep without autopilot turned on.
- Traster 7y ago
  I think that's a question of culture. You agree to an EULA every time you use anything. Any time you call up customer service "Your calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes". All of the new party drugs you can buy have "Not for human consumption". Warning labels are not an effective way of communicating to people what the limits on a product are. Especially so when the company's CEO heavily implies that those warning labels are exclusively there for regulatory reasons. On the one hand you have a boiler plate warning, on the other hand you have the mulit-billionare genius CEO of Tesla doing interviews with 60 minutes making a point of taking his hands off the wheel completely and bragging about it.[1] >A better angle would be that, some people who were gonna fall asleep anyways, had their lives saved. I don't buy this, people are more likely to not pay attention when they think they've been told they can not pay attention. [1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-the-2018-60-minutes-interview/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-the-2018-6...
  - dwighttk 7y ago
    >Warning labels are not an effective way of communicating to people what the limits on a product are. Especially so when the company's CEO heavily implies that those warning labels are exclusively there for regulatory reasons. emphasis added
- CameronBanga 7y ago
dalbasal 7y ago
Is it a question of marketing/naming or of feature design? Ultimately, I'm skeptical these are a good idea regardless of messaging. I can see the appeal. Drivers get to experience cool new tech. Tesla/bmw/etc get a ramp that lets them develop autonomy gradually. But at least in my uneducated opinion, autonomy-with-human-on-standby is a bad idea. Uncanny valley and whatnot.
- cheeko1234 7y ago
  Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day Human in the loop is a terrible idea. We love doing make-up, texting, driving drunk, etc. We love road rage and silly egotistical lane changes or blocks and reduce efficiency of the roadways. It was fine at speeds of horses but not anymore. Especially with smartphones in the loop. Partial autonomy and then transitioning to full autonomy is the future of transportation. A car should be more like an elevator in functionality. Press a button, and take me there.
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    It should, sure. But full autonomy does not exist right now and is as hypothetical as general AI. Elon promised a coast to coast road trip across the US all the way back in 2016. If it was at all possible wouldn’t Tesla have hit at least that milestone by now? They couldn’t even drive the autonomy day demos more than 10 minutes without needing human intervention. And sure Waymo has good tech that is far beyond Tesla’s but those are very tightly controlled and geo boxed and driving with ladar. Still a long way from full autonomous driving.
    - dwild 7y ago
      > If it was at all possible wouldn’t Tesla have hit at least that milestone by now? What? Because Elon wasn't able to achieve a milestone you consider it not possible at all? That's just absurd. > Still a long way from full autonomous driving. Yeah, still a long way from full autonomous driving, but having that training data make it that much closer. Theses cars have driven more miles than they ever could on test roads in a century.
good_guy 7y ago
lol does it matter ? he is fucking dead.
navigatesol 7y ago
>Perhaps they should rename it to assisted driving or something like that. Only a few short weeks ago Elon proclaimed Tesla will have 1 million fully-autonomous, value-appreciating robo-taxis driving the country within a year. Way too late for them to admit their technology is nothing but "assisted driver".
JshWright 7y ago
> perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control as opposed to you can go to sleep, the car can drive itself Tesla (and more specifically, Elon) seem to continually go out of their way to make that less clear, not more.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Less clear in the marketing materials, but when you actually use the car it's very clear.
  - rohit2412 7y ago
    Ahh, very useful when people die. It was their fault for falling for Tesla's lies.
zaroth 7y ago
The driver sets the speed, just like any cruise control. It’s controlled through the right hand scroll wheel on the steering wheel.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  > It’s controlled through the right hand scroll wheel on the steering wheel. Not on my 2015 S 80D. There it is a small stalk on the left of the steering column. Up to go faster down to go slower. Double pull toward driver to enable Autosteer.
masklinn 7y ago
> perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control as opposed to you can go to sleep, the car can drive itself. You mean like every other car company, and the exact opposite of tesla's entire marketing strategy?
- pooya13 7y ago
  > the exact opposite of tesla's entire marketing strategy Citation needed. Do you have any examples of Tesla’s marketing strategy indicating that “you can sleep at the wheel”? (Not what they predict of the future of the system, but about it’s current state) The term autopilot comes from the avionics industry. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure a pilot cannot go to sleep while auto-pilot is engaged either.
  - Jasper_ 7y ago
    The start of their Autopilot marketing video [0] clearly states "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." [0] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
    - natch 7y ago
      Your citation doesn't support your point at all. It’s not an autopilot marketing video. It’s showing how the future could look. It’s probably using a current at the time development version of some FSD software. What does the header say right above that video? In a really big headline font, that’s really hard to miss? “Future of Driving”
  - rohit2412 7y ago
    Full self driving hardware. Elon musk takes hands off the wheel. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-breaks-tesla-autopilot-rule-2018-12 https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-breaks-tesla-aut... Tesla very much makes it sound like that you just need to sit back and enjoy a coffee while your car drives. Many imagine that the car will give them 5-10 seconds of heads up before takeover is needed.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
The driver sets the speed. Unless the autosteer determines that it is on a two lane road with no central reservation or other divider in which case it restricts the speed to the speed limit plus whatever margin the user has set. It never increases the speed beyond what the user has set. At least that's how my 2015 S 70D with AP1 (1.5?) works. And it's pretty reliable. I think I have driven about 30k km in the last 18 months and I must have had autosteer on for close to half of that. It misbehaves a little on the kinds of roads that Tesla says it is unsuited for but still the car and I drive better together than either would alone. Where anyone who actually drives a Tesla would get the idea that you could sleep while the car drives I can't imagine. The configuration screen where you enable it makes it perfectly clear that this is a driver assistance function that requires the driver to be able to take control. And every time you enable the function with the steering column stalk it reminds you in the dash to keep your hands on the wheel. Yachtsmen sleep while on autopilot but that kind of autopilot is considerably less capable that Tesla's and is only safe while in the open sea away from busy shipping lanes, ditto aircraft. As far as I know commercial aircraft require at least one pilot to be awake and in the seat in the cockpit at all times whether or not autopilot is on.
cmsonger 7y ago
> but perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control Maybe. Here's the thing. The feature, by its very nature, does not punish inattention like normal driving. If you let go of the wheel and focus on your phone -- even using your knee to hold the wheel, chances are the longer you are distracted the more likely you are to have a minor wakeup that says "don't do that." Maybe your car starts to hit the bumps between lanes. Maybe your peripheral vision picks up something and you get an adrenalin jolt as you refocus attention on the road. AP is not like that. 99.9% of the time it does a pretty good job on the expressway. (95% if you are in traffic and have defensive driving tendencies where you are projecting ahead 10-15 seconds and moving lanes accordingly.) So you literally can look at your phone for 15 seconds look up and find your car at reasonable distances from other cars and properly in the lane. All of the normal "don't do that" feedback loops for inattention are removed. But then there's that unusual case, like this one, where AP gets it wrong and the consequences are extreme. Is this different from normal inattention? I think yes because normal inattention often leaves you feeling "I just took a risk" due to the natural, and usually small, consequences. My point is this: It may not be that the labeling of the feature is dangerous. It may be that the feature itself, by its very nature of removing the less serious consequences of inattention, is dangerous.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "My point is this: It may not be that the labeling of the feature is dangerous. It may be that the feature itself, by its very nature of removing the less serious consequences of inattention, is dangerous." This reminds me of sports car reviews where they talk about how the combination of extremely grippy modern tires and traction/stability control mean that there is no warning before losing control, whereas older cars had gradual feedback.

Shivetya 7y ago

As an owner and autonomous driving fan I keep asking the same question. Will autonomous cars be legislated to always obey the law or will that still be a judgment left to the driver if the car can be driven either way. I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact your speeding for the systems that can read speed limit signs in addition to have current maps.

CydeWeys 7y ago
It seems inevitable that autonomous vehicles will be required to obey speed limits in the future. The question in my mind is will it be the same speed limits as for humans?
- tastroder 7y ago
  I don't see how that is even a question without 100% autonomy and proven above-human performance, human drivers on the same roads still have to react so different speed limits don't seem to make much sense.
  - nightski 7y ago
    Well seeing as you can get a ticket for going at or under the speed limit in some major cities because it is a hazard that might be interesting.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I believe the law in NY state uses the phrase "impeding traffic" and doesn't reference the speed limit. So (although I am not a lawyer) I imagine you could violate it whether you were going under, at, or over, the limit.
- gambiting 7y ago
  Yes, because: 1) I don't believe we'll go "autonomous cars only" for predictable future. I can see that happening on limited set of streets(say, strict city centres), but not overall. Mostly because I think requiring everyone to buy an autonomous car is ridiculous, and then there are cars made even right now that I can totally see people driving in 20/30/50 years from now. We'll always allow manual cars on the road, just like we still allow horses - it just became so rare that in practice it's not an issue to have an animal with no safety features on the road next to modern motor vehicles. 2) there will always be users of the road that cannot be made automous - motorcycles. Unless you believe that motorcycles will be banned, but I don't think that will happen. So yes, I think any speed limits of the future will be set for humans first and foremost. I do look forward to those speed limits to be revised up though - cars are far safer and more efficient at higher speeds than they were few decades ago, and yet speed limits have never been revised to reflect that. US is particularly bad at this, with empty stretches of straight road having a speed limit of 50mph for instance. That should have been fixed years ago.
- cesarb 7y ago
  We already have different speed limits for different users in some highways (for instance, one major highway near where I live has a limit in some places of 110 km/h for cars and 90 km/h for trucks and buses), so there's precedent. But I believe that, at least initially, speed limits for self-driving vehicles will be lower.
gambiting 7y ago
>>I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact your speeding for the systems that can read speed limit signs in addition to have current maps. Well, there are systems that do this. Many new cars have speed limit sign recognition built in and they will display the current limit on the dashboard(and sometimes show you an icon indicating that the vehicle thinks you are speeding). The reason why this is not more aggressive is because it's only seemingly a simple problem - in reality it's far far from it. In my experience of driving around the EU - I had a Mercedes CLS(brand new 2019 model) with adaptive cruise control and speed limit signs recognition, and while amazing when it worked, it worked maybe 50% of the time. Issues I noticed: 1) it kept detecting speed limit signs on roads parallel to the one I was on [0] 2) it kept detecting speed limit signs on side roads - leading to actual dangerous situations, because I was on a 50mph road, going past a 20mph side street and the car would suddenly hit the brakes because it detected a 20mph speed limit. That's 10000% unnacceptable in a production vehicle. [1] 3) it kept reading speed limit signs on the slip roads leaving the motorway - so you're doing 70mph on the motorway, and it suddenly reads the 50mph speed limit that's for the motorway exit. Same problem as with point 2. 4) In situations where there are no speed limit signs, it would use the map data - and even though this was a brand new, March 2019 vehicle, it had no idea that a stretch of motorway next to my house is not limited to 50mph anymore, and hasn't been for the last 2 years. In practice, I had to keep overriding the speed limit chosen by the car constantly, and after few days I switched it fully off as it led to me nearly shitting my pants as the car hit the brakes for seemingly no reason whatsoever few times. And then I have concerns about countries where the speed limit is only valid to the nearest intersection - and the definition of an intersection varies. There are paved roads merging with the main road which are not intersections because the side road leads to private property, and then there are dirt tracks which are intersections because technically it's a public road open to motor traffic. There are no signs to indicate either - the driver is just "supposed to know". It's idiotic, I know. And in some countries(Poland) the speed limit can change as often as 4-5 times in a span of a single kilometre. What's even worse is that there are situations when the speed limit can actually increase(!!!!) the speed limit set in a certain zone(built-up zones have a 50km/h speed limit, but this can be increased by a regular speed limit sign - and then yes, it goes back down(!!!) to 50km/h after an intersection). All of this stuff would be incredibly hard to code into a system like this, and it's one of the reasons why I suspect the proposal made by EU to have automatic speed limiters built into cars will either fail, or people will just keep disabling it altogether, making the whole idea pointless. [0] Here it would think the side road has a speed limit of 50mph, because it would read the wrong sign: https://www.google.pl/maps/@54.9929676,-1.5788994,3a,75y,78.69h,85.53t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssEpcslIqt97nfVrtZtQYhA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.pl/maps/@54.9929676,-1.5788994,3a,75y,78.... [1] Here for example the 20mph sign is placed at an angle to the road, so the car would read it going past it - and set the adaptive cruise control to 20mph which is incorrect for this street: https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0074774,-1.615172,3a,41.3y,90.87h,86.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5WsAtaR3hv8QI1b5PG371w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0074774,-1.615172,3a,41.3y,90... Same here: https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0071611,-1.6214135,3a,75y,240.68h,82.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9NH6vTDZaU5smuIYopqBMQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.pl/maps/@55.0071611,-1.6214135,3a,75y,240...
kristopolous 7y ago
I'm only half joking when I call for a bloodlust dial with a murder level on it. The core idea is to continue to grant enough agency to the operator that they are held responsible as long as the vehicle faithfully executed the intent. The tongue and cheek bloodsport throttle in the real world would instead be a proactive user choice of how much human guidance and interaction is required (solving the handoff problem, for example, 1 minute automatic, 1 minute manual or an automatic system that you'll need to irritatingly press a button every few minutes to stay engaged). If a user options for "zero engagement" (let's pretend they're drunk or just got out of surgery), then there has to be a visceral experience of the underlying risks; a constant beeping and flashing, some real sense of urgency and warning. I know it's a luxury product but cars are machines of carnage where death is never more than a mistake and mere seconds away. That reality should supercede. This may be eventually removed, but a system like this would honestly solve all the current issues
- noxToken 7y ago
  >an automatic system that you'll need to irritatingly press a button every few minutes to stay engaged Just like trains! There is an alarm system just as you describe. After a certain amount of time, there are audio and visual warnings for the engineer. The engineer must engage the switch to "snooze" the alarm, and in the event that the engineer does not engage, the train automatically cuts power to throttle to brake. I'm not sure flashing lights and a klaxon are what we would want in a car, but maybe beeping akin to lane assist that quickly increases in volume + a light on the dash would be a good start.
  - Domenic_S 7y ago
    It works that way in a Tesla. If the system doesn't detect your hands on the wheel (using rotational force on the steering wheel as a proxy), first a message appears on the screen, then seconds later the screen flashes blue, then a few seconds later the volume on the radio is lowered and the car beeps at you urgently. If you still don't touch the wheel, a few seconds later the hazard lights come on and the car slows to a stop.
londons_explore 7y ago
> I am surprised there are not laws to have cars alert you to the fact you['re] speeding Europe is mandating this (combined with limiting) for new cars soon. It will be possible to override 'temporarily'.

leesec 7y ago

I think this is a tired argument. Every time you turn it on it says please be ready to take over at any time. It gives constant messaging that your hand needs to be on the wheel. No one driving it should think that you can fall asleep. A better angle would be that, some people who were gonna fall asleep anyways, had their lives saved.

camjohnson26 7y ago
It seems like more people will fall asleep due to a false sense of security than would have fallen asleep without autopilot turned on.
Traster 7y ago
I think that's a question of culture. You agree to an EULA every time you use anything. Any time you call up customer service "Your calls are recorded for quality assurance purposes". All of the new party drugs you can buy have "Not for human consumption". Warning labels are not an effective way of communicating to people what the limits on a product are. Especially so when the company's CEO heavily implies that those warning labels are exclusively there for regulatory reasons. On the one hand you have a boiler plate warning, on the other hand you have the mulit-billionare genius CEO of Tesla doing interviews with 60 minutes making a point of taking his hands off the wheel completely and bragging about it.[1] >A better angle would be that, some people who were gonna fall asleep anyways, had their lives saved. I don't buy this, people are more likely to not pay attention when they think they've been told they can not pay attention. [1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-the-2018-60-minutes-interview/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-the-2018-6...
- dwighttk 7y ago
  >Warning labels are not an effective way of communicating to people what the limits on a product are. Especially so when the company's CEO heavily implies that those warning labels are exclusively there for regulatory reasons. emphasis added
CameronBanga 7y ago

dalbasal 7y ago

Is it a question of marketing/naming or of feature design? Ultimately, I'm skeptical these are a good idea regardless of messaging. I can see the appeal. Drivers get to experience cool new tech. Tesla/bmw/etc get a ramp that lets them develop autonomy gradually. But at least in my uneducated opinion, autonomy-with-human-on-standby is a bad idea. Uncanny valley and whatnot.

cheeko1234 7y ago
Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day Human in the loop is a terrible idea. We love doing make-up, texting, driving drunk, etc. We love road rage and silly egotistical lane changes or blocks and reduce efficiency of the roadways. It was fine at speeds of horses but not anymore. Especially with smartphones in the loop. Partial autonomy and then transitioning to full autonomy is the future of transportation. A car should be more like an elevator in functionality. Press a button, and take me there.
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  It should, sure. But full autonomy does not exist right now and is as hypothetical as general AI. Elon promised a coast to coast road trip across the US all the way back in 2016. If it was at all possible wouldn’t Tesla have hit at least that milestone by now? They couldn’t even drive the autonomy day demos more than 10 minutes without needing human intervention. And sure Waymo has good tech that is far beyond Tesla’s but those are very tightly controlled and geo boxed and driving with ladar. Still a long way from full autonomous driving.
  - dwild 7y ago
    > If it was at all possible wouldn’t Tesla have hit at least that milestone by now? What? Because Elon wasn't able to achieve a milestone you consider it not possible at all? That's just absurd. > Still a long way from full autonomous driving. Yeah, still a long way from full autonomous driving, but having that training data make it that much closer. Theses cars have driven more miles than they ever could on test roads in a century.

good_guy 7y ago

lol does it matter ? he is fucking dead.

navigatesol 7y ago

>Perhaps they should rename it to assisted driving or something like that. Only a few short weeks ago Elon proclaimed Tesla will have 1 million fully-autonomous, value-appreciating robo-taxis driving the country within a year. Way too late for them to admit their technology is nothing but "assisted driver".

JshWright 7y ago

> perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control as opposed to you can go to sleep, the car can drive itself Tesla (and more specifically, Elon) seem to continually go out of their way to make that less clear, not more.

londons_explore 7y ago
Less clear in the marketing materials, but when you actually use the car it's very clear.
- rohit2412 7y ago
  Ahh, very useful when people die. It was their fault for falling for Tesla's lies.

zaroth 7y ago

The driver sets the speed, just like any cruise control. It’s controlled through the right hand scroll wheel on the steering wheel.

kwhitefoot 7y ago
> It’s controlled through the right hand scroll wheel on the steering wheel. Not on my 2015 S 80D. There it is a small stalk on the left of the steering column. Up to go faster down to go slower. Double pull toward driver to enable Autosteer.

masklinn 7y ago

> perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control as opposed to you can go to sleep, the car can drive itself. You mean like every other car company, and the exact opposite of tesla's entire marketing strategy?

pooya13 7y ago
> the exact opposite of tesla's entire marketing strategy Citation needed. Do you have any examples of Tesla’s marketing strategy indicating that “you can sleep at the wheel”? (Not what they predict of the future of the system, but about it’s current state) The term autopilot comes from the avionics industry. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure a pilot cannot go to sleep while auto-pilot is engaged either.
- Jasper_ 7y ago
  The start of their Autopilot marketing video [0] clearly states "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." [0] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
  - natch 7y ago
    Your citation doesn't support your point at all. It’s not an autopilot marketing video. It’s showing how the future could look. It’s probably using a current at the time development version of some FSD software. What does the header say right above that video? In a really big headline font, that’s really hard to miss? “Future of Driving”
- rohit2412 7y ago
  Full self driving hardware. Elon musk takes hands off the wheel. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-breaks-tesla-autopilot-rule-2018-12 https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-breaks-tesla-aut... Tesla very much makes it sound like that you just need to sit back and enjoy a coffee while your car drives. Many imagine that the car will give them 5-10 seconds of heads up before takeover is needed.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

The driver sets the speed. Unless the autosteer determines that it is on a two lane road with no central reservation or other divider in which case it restricts the speed to the speed limit plus whatever margin the user has set. It never increases the speed beyond what the user has set. At least that's how my 2015 S 70D with AP1 (1.5?) works. And it's pretty reliable. I think I have driven about 30k km in the last 18 months and I must have had autosteer on for close to half of that. It misbehaves a little on the kinds of roads that Tesla says it is unsuited for but still the car and I drive better together than either would alone. Where anyone who actually drives a Tesla would get the idea that you could sleep while the car drives I can't imagine. The configuration screen where you enable it makes it perfectly clear that this is a driver assistance function that requires the driver to be able to take control. And every time you enable the function with the steering column stalk it reminds you in the dash to keep your hands on the wheel. Yachtsmen sleep while on autopilot but that kind of autopilot is considerably less capable that Tesla's and is only safe while in the open sea away from busy shipping lanes, ditto aircraft. As far as I know commercial aircraft require at least one pilot to be awake and in the seat in the cockpit at all times whether or not autopilot is on.

cmsonger 7y ago

> but perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control Maybe. Here's the thing. The feature, by its very nature, does not punish inattention like normal driving. If you let go of the wheel and focus on your phone -- even using your knee to hold the wheel, chances are the longer you are distracted the more likely you are to have a minor wakeup that says "don't do that." Maybe your car starts to hit the bumps between lanes. Maybe your peripheral vision picks up something and you get an adrenalin jolt as you refocus attention on the road. AP is not like that. 99.9% of the time it does a pretty good job on the expressway. (95% if you are in traffic and have defensive driving tendencies where you are projecting ahead 10-15 seconds and moving lanes accordingly.) So you literally can look at your phone for 15 seconds look up and find your car at reasonable distances from other cars and properly in the lane. All of the normal "don't do that" feedback loops for inattention are removed. But then there's that unusual case, like this one, where AP gets it wrong and the consequences are extreme. Is this different from normal inattention? I think yes because normal inattention often leaves you feeling "I just took a risk" due to the natural, and usually small, consequences. My point is this: It may not be that the labeling of the feature is dangerous. It may be that the feature itself, by its very nature of removing the less serious consequences of inattention, is dangerous.

perl4ever 7y ago
"My point is this: It may not be that the labeling of the feature is dangerous. It may be that the feature itself, by its very nature of removing the less serious consequences of inattention, is dangerous." This reminds me of sports car reviews where they talk about how the combination of extremely grippy modern tires and traction/stability control mean that there is no warning before losing control, whereas older cars had gradual feedback.