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Comment by bdrool | Hacker News Reader

They should have called it "Cruise Control Plus™" or something similar. Regardless of the usual arguments about how accurate the name is according to the avionics definition of the term, "autopilot" is misleading in the context of the consumer car market. Tesla should not have named it that.

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> autopilot: a device that steers a ship, aircraft, or spacecraft in place of a person.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autopilot

I am surprised that Merriam Webster's definition only mentions steering and not acceleration. Telsa's autopilot does have a steering component, so it doesn't seem to be that much of a stretch.

I think the argument against the term 'autopilot' is less about the technical accuracy, and more about the implication and assumptions of the layman. To most people, 'autopilot' suggest that they can be totally hands-off, which isn't true yet.

Yeah, I feel like the people here/elsewhere who take great pains to point out the limitations of aircraft autopilot systems somewhat miss the point - the general perception of what is offered.

The average lay person doesn't care about different axes of autopilot, Flight Management Systems (FMS), Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) versus GPS, autloand capabilities and categories of Instrument Land Systems (ILS). (Yes, I grouped several different, complementary technologies together, whilst aware of their definitions, to further my point).

Lay understanding of autopilot being 'tell it a destination, let it do the work'.

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