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Comment by simfoo | Hacker News Reader

Watch Tesla's autopilot almost causing a head-on collision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrwxEX8qOxA

Except that's not the autopilot almost causing anything, it's the autopilot disengaging that almost causes a collision. The autopilot is disengaging because this is, in fact, not a completely autonomous vehicle, and the autopilot feature is mean to be used on a highway, which that road is not, and similarly to cruise control with the human remaining alert and ready to take over, which the guy recording obviously was not.

So, good evidence that we can't go halfway with these things, and need to take humans out of the equation.

This is why all other car brands with this feature automatically disengages a few seconds after you let go of the steering wheel. And no - this does not make the whole feature useless, it's both a great convenience and works as an extra safety net to keep you on the center of the road if you put your focus on adjusting the aircon temperature for a second. The disengage in the video also comes very suddenly, the steering wheel starts steering very quickly to the left before there is even any warning sound.

Tesla should recall this feature as is, first of all calling it "auto pilot" invites people to trust it too much, plus not enforcing the by law required hand on the wheel is just asking for abuse. People are stupid and the scenario on the video could have killed both the negligent driver of the tesla and the innocent driver in the other vehicle.

You make good points. Although, disengaging when you release the wheel sounds like it could do as much harm as good. If anything, I'd rather it discourage this behavior using a nag alarm, possibly followed by automatically slowing/stopping the vehicle somewhat safely. As you say, people are stupid, and I can see some idiot trying to grab a beer out of a cooler in the back seat within the grace period (or deal with a dropped cell phone, pebble in a shoe, spider on the window, etc) and ending up careening off the road or into oncoming traffic.

I agree that this feature isn't useless. I'd love to have it, myself. As you say, it does need work to idiot-proof it, and possibly a re-branding.

But still, I would much much rather see full autonomy, as soon as possible. Wouldn't want to see us stay bogged down in the halfway stage. And I'm a little concerned that the first fatal accident caused by inappropriate use of driver assistance systems like this will unrightfully poison minds against fully autonomous systems, and take us a huge step back.

Autopilot disengaged( with a loud beep and visual ) and the driver didn't have his hands on the wheel like he is supposed to. Consequentially the car started to drift left. In addition autopilot can only be used on a highway.

Several mistakes made by driver, so the blame is on him.

Except that you can clearly hear the autopilot disengage before the car swerves to the left. And the swerve doesn't start until it is physically impossible for a collision to happen. And the slope of the road isn't enough to make the car swerve like that. And you can't see the lower half of the steering wheel (where the driver's hands might be). And [...] ad infinitum.

Just a "Youtuber" trolling for clicks.

It's not exactly the best road for Autopilot.

>Autosteer works well on standard highways when there are clear lane markings or a car directly ahead to follow. It does not function reliably when a road has sharp turns. [...]

Keep in mind, Autopilot is a (public) beta, and as such, it asks you to keep your hands on the wheel at all times.

I'm fairly sure you are not supposed to be using Tesla autopilot unless you are on a highway.

Then don't call it autopilot

It's in beta for a reason, and before using it, you have to accept a disclaimer clearly stating that you should not use it on road without a concrete separation between you and the opposite traffic, and you should not use it on road with sharp turns. This guy was clearly looking for the limit of the autopilot, and found it, nearly at the expense of others.

> It's in beta for a reason

There's no place on the public roads for beta software in safety-critical sytems. In fact, it's highly irresponsible.

Tesla need to verify this off-road and release a production version.

Do you think they didn't verified it off-road? Beta (in this case) doesn't mean faulty or half-assed, but you cannot possibly encounter all real-life situations on your off-road closed track, hence the name Beta to stress that point. As far as I know there wasn't any issue with the autopilot when respecting the limitations stated by Tesla. Now if a driver want to disregard those warnings, He is being highly irresponsible, not Tesla. It's like blaming an auto manufacturer because you are able to do 100mph with your car in 30mph zones.

> Do you think they didn't verified it off-road? Beta (in this case) doesn't mean faulty or half-assed

I know what beta means: it means that it hasn't shown consistent behaviour in a production environment. It means that there are edge cases which aren't understood yet. It also means that there are desired features which haven't been implemented yet. It means a lot things, of which none give a warm feeling if you're sharing the road with said software.

> As far as I know there wasn't any issue with the autopilot when respecting the limitations stated by Tesla

Ok. Do you think the environment in the video is consistent with the limitations stated by Tesla? When I look at the video, I see a car driving irresponsibly fast past a queue of slow-moving or stationary vehicles which then saved its ass by slamming on the brakes. Automatic cars which drive like that should not be on the road.

I think we cannot agree because we don't have the same definition about who should be responsible of what. This is probably because Tesla call this feature Autopilot, while it is just an Autosteer (they also use this name sometime). Autopilot gives the impression that the car should be autonomous and be able to drive itself, while this is really not the case. The car can only do basically 4 things:

-Follow the road lines

-Follow the car in front (this is what happen in this video)

-OCR on the road sign to adjust it speed

-Emergency breaking

All the rest is currently the responsibility of the driver, including reducing the speed in dangerous situations (like this one), taking the wheel in sharp turns, taking the wheel in cities, doing stops at traffic lights etc.

The Tesla is NOT (yet) an autonomous car, and if you drive it with that expectation, it can be very dangerous indeed.

The didn't call it self-driving, right? They called it something different told you to always keep your hands on the wheel.

It depends how 'autopilot' is defined. There are airplanes that have autopilot but all they can do is to keep the plane level. And there are others that can take off, land and do everything in between.

Nitpick, but there's no autopilot for takeoffs.

http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/

Damn it, I knew this. Thanks for spotting it. =]

I remember a few months ago taking a test dive and the Tesla rep was very quick to correct me when I called it "autopilot". He kept saying it is just a safety feature. This is a very important distinction because many states laws' will have problems with autonomous vehicles. Even at the municipality level; Some cities require you have one hand on the wheel at all times. The laws aren't ready for what's coming. So until then..."Safety Features"

Tesla a calls it autosteer not auto pilot

> Tesla a calls it autosteer not auto pilot

They certainly use the term[1]: "Along with the new Autopilot feature...".

[1]: http://www.teslamotors.com/presskit/autopilot

"You're not supposed to use autopilot during takeoff sir." "Then don't call it autopilot"

What exactly about the term autopilot makes you think it must be for all aspects of the journey? Real autopilot does not work like that, so where did you get the idea that car autopilot does?

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