Sorry Elon, Telsa autopilot release was reckless

All of these features exist in other cars on the road today, or even for the past few years. My car is a 2013 model, and has several of these features. My mother-in-law's 2014 had even more. Not exactly beta.

Nothing new here, other than the ability to enable and coordinate over the air.

Some comments on comments:

- Tesla stated it was beta on multiple occasions. Also claims they have "UNIQUE combination of cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors". For Tesla, this was categorically a beta test.

- A circumspect release would consider probability and severity of risk factors. The probability of idiots getting behind the wheel can not be discounted. Combine that with the temptation of said users to play with their new toy, plus (albeit low) probability of any number of hardware, sensor, or software malfunctions, plus all of the permutations and combinations of external road and traffic conditions that the Telsa network has not learnt yet, and the probably of accidents can not be insignificant.

- an accident in a high-performance car can easily result in deaths and grievous injuries of innocent people - a high severity risk

- beta software could have been made available to a select set of users rather than released in wild. Also could have discluded total hands-free and out-of-save-zone autonomy to make it safer

With the the exception of autopilot steering towards an oncoming car, this is a terribly subjective argument. People need to understand that driving a car is a highly responsible activity. When the car systems explicitly tell you to be attentive even if the car is driving, there is a reason for it. I believe a crash with autopilot enabled puts the responsibility on the driver, as it should.

Tesla are not saying their car will now take you from A to B with no intervention. Like GPS navigation, they are right now attempting to take some effort out of driving to make it less stressful.

Oh come on. This is stupid. You're still in control of when to enable it. Choosing to use autopilot on a two way, curvy highway is reckless. Using it where a child can run in front of the car si reckless. Choosing to use it where there are intersections is reckless.

It will improve with time. Meanwhile, using it on a multilane, separated highway in good conditions is fine.

I can just as easily drive while texting. That's still reckless, and it's still MY CHOICE to do that!

At some point, you have to take it mainstream in order to make it better. Maybe it was a little early, but that's subjective.

Not really, the only reckless thing is the people taking their hands of the wheel while using it, which is also quite illegal in many places.

This isn't that different than adaptive cruise control with auto stop, distance keeping and lane tracking that is available in many cars as far as a decade ago, you can use them to make the ride more "enjoyable" but you shouldn't rely on them to do your job for you.

Tesla's auto pilot is a tool you are still the operator.