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Comment by Vik1ng | Hacker News Reader

> "The update will also penalize inattentive drivers. If the car determines that the driver doesn't have their hands on the wheel and throws its audible warning three times in an hour, it will lock the driver out of the feature. In order to re-enable Autopilot, the car will have to be pulled over and put in park."

https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/11/tesla-s-next-autopilot-u...

If Engadget got that right I think we will see a lot of upset Tesla owners in a few weeks.

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There will be more upset Tesla owners, but fewer tuned-out ones. Tesla needed to do this.

Tesla punishing users not following the rules > Regulators punishing Tesla.

I don't think it will upset very many owners. In normal use this change will never be apparent, only when you're really screwing up.

> If Engadget got that right I think we will see a lot of upset Tesla owners in a few weeks.

Probably also a small handful fewer dead ones over the next few years.

Reminder that proponents of autopilot systems wage the utilitarian argument that if self driving cars were even slightly better at keeping people alive behind the wheel than human drivers, then it is worthwhile to keep them on the road. Tesla's implementation didn't have these safety features that other manufacturers had in their assisted cruise control systems and people died. A few disgruntled users trumps unneeded deaths caused by a false sense of confidence in Tesla's autopilot.

> Tesla's implementation didn't have these safety features that other manufacturers had in their assisted cruise control systems and people died.

ONE person died. Over many million miles of Autopilot driving. Last I heard it was much safer to drive with Autopilot than without. Yep, per Musk:

> “Indeed, if anyone bothered to do the math (obviously, you did not) they would realize that of the over 1M auto deaths per year worldwide, approximately half a million people would have been saved if the Tesla autopilot was universally available. Please, take 5 mins and do the bloody math before you write an article that misleads the public.”

> Over many million miles of Autopilot driving. Last I heard it was much safer to drive with Autopilot than without.

There are luxury car models with a similar amount of purchases and miles driven that have had 0 casualties.

As a Tesla owner I always keep a hand loosely on the wheel and I never get a warning. In fact the only time I've seen the warning was when I deliberately kept my hands off to get a feel for when the warning occurs and what it looks and sounds like. I still haven't been brave enough to let the car trigger the fail safe "come to a stop" scenario when ignoring multiple warnings, I also wonder if doing so might cause a black mark against my Tesla account ;)

I sense a new application for Korean sausages!

https://www.engadget.com/2010/02/11/south-korean-iphone-user...

Tesla need to show the regulators that this technology is still driver assist. They need to prove that they are doing reasonable effort to remind the drive to pay attention.

The problem is that the marketing isn't that it's driver assist, it's that it is self-driving.

And that's the task their marketing department is facing: to correctly align product features and positioning to develop and sell (gradually) full self-driving while being on a well-developed legal ground (driver assist) while the law catches on.

I keep my hands off the wheel all the time and it hardly ever gives me the warning. And the blog post says that it only stops you if you ignore the warnings i.e. Presumably don't put your hands on the wheel. In reality it is pretty nice to relax in the car and put your hands down while still paying enough attention that you can instantly grab the wheel if nessecary. But yes, it does worry me that this might be annoying.

Entire point of having autopilot is not to have hands on wheel! I really don't think it would serve any purpose other than legal caveats. Even if your hands on the wheels it takes much longer to reacts if something bad happens. I hope this is just because its early days of self-driving so we can collect some test data and improve the system to the point that it is actually self-driving.

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