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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

You know I take issue with Tesla on these incidents. They're trying to have it both ways. They market it as 'autopilot' to appeal to the dream of complete self-driving but if an accident actually happens it can never be the fault of autopilot. After all it's required for the driver to be paying attention so if they didn't override autopilot it's obvious they weren't paying attention. Really I'd like to see the government to step in and force Tesla to market their product more honestly.

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I couldn’t agree more. It baffles me how Tesla can get away with such blatant false advertising (it’s anything but “autopilot” in any layman sense), especially in light of there being multiple incidents of bad accidents which showed them at fault.

Couldn’t agree more. People who argue for Elon’s meaning of auto-pilot are wrong. Unless 100% of Tesla drivers are 100% aware of the limitations calling it auto-pilot is dangerous.

I would be curious about the stats though, If accidents are less frequent, is it at fault for accidents, or did it save us from a bunch of accidents?

There's also those other issues:

Tesla has not been counting collisions caused by the driver having to brake hard because the autopilot was about to happily slam into another vehicle/object/person? Tesla's summation of those is that they were not a failing of Autopilot, because it was not active at the moment of impact. That's ... disingenuous ... at best.

And then:

"It would have avoided this accident [by braking, steering]", and studiously saying nothing about the future, "... but it would still have been in a collision 0.42 seconds later".

For all the collisions it would have avoided, there's another subset where it would only have "delayed" the collision. But that won't be mentioned. Because it doesn't fit the narrative.

Source? I've seen people speculate about the first, but just speculation. And that Google/Waymo does the same thing. I don't think it's true for either: public companies get sued for lies like that, and the NTSB is not stupid.

> or did it save us from a bunch of accidents?

I do not believe Tesla’s are equipped with the necessary hardware to scientifically show beyond a reasonable doubt they assisted in preventing accidents.

Part of the problem is that whether an accident would have occurred is partially dependent on the human driver. While some accidents are unavoidable and some are completely preventable, there's a gray area in between those that depends on driver skill to a degree.

266 Billion Miles are driven on US roadways each _month_. It's going to be a while before we have a predictive dataset.

And yet when we get stuck in thought and don’t think about where we’re going and drive to our office on the weekend by accident we say “oh, I got stuck in autopilot”

These accidents are not people mistaking the purpose of autopilot, they are people slipping into false confidence that the car will handle the driving for them because it has in the past.

From Elon's interview, he mentioned that 'autopilot' was a name akin to the flight autopilots. Pilots are never expected to get their eyes off the controls.

This crash is unfortunate and should be investigated. But autopilot naming is something I don't think is the problem.

> Pilots are never expected to get their eyes off the controls.

Pilots do so all the time, because airplanes aren't flying in a congested 2D space. Airspace is mostly empty, with very large distances between planes and features, allowing for plenty of early warning.

And an airplane's "autopilot" has nothing to do with Tesla's Autopilot. Their purpose and working mechanisms are completely different.

The airplane analogy is pure bullshit.

The aircraft autopilot is pretty much the same thing. It steers on the designated lane, maintaining attitude, and relies on the pilot to be aware of conditions.

It operates the controls but relies on the human operator for supervision. Pilots talk about “flying in the magenta” and exactly the same thing applies to Tesla Autopilot.

Believing that autopilot means something different is the bullshit attitude that has to change.

Warren Van Der Burch gave a classic presentation, Children of Magenta: https://youtu.be/pN41LvuSz10

I think the main difference is that, on an airplane, a momentary (less than 5 seconds) lapse in judgment isn’t going to down the plane. Pilots know when they have to be heavily engaged — during takeoff and landing — and when to let autopilot take over. Here, if you zone out for a few seconds at any point in your trip you could easily kill yourself and others.

A lapse of judgement is potentially going to cost lives in a plane too. You have an overly romanticised notion of air safety if you believe otherwise. Pilot Error is what they call it, including euphemisms such as “controlled flight into terrain” meaning the pilot was in control and doing everything wrong.

There are two people flying the plane, with rigorous training and controlled work hours. Air safety, as they say, is no accident.

An aircraft autopilot is not designed to automatically avoid collisions with other traffic or animals. It's purpose is only to maintain course, speed, and altitude. In VFR conditions while autopilots are useful continuous scanning of your surroundings is necessary.

Meanwhile a Tesla "autopilot" is designed to drive in traffic with other vehicles.

The aircraft autopilot can also fly a route and handle everything from takeoff to landing, but pilots don’t rely on it to do so.

Tesla Autopilot can keep pace with surrounding traffic and stay between marked lines but does not recognise stationary obstacles.

They are very much the same in that they automate the mundane parts of the operation of the vehicle. They are also the same in that they do not know how to handle conditions outside their operating envelope.

> An aircraft autopilot is not designed to automatically avoid collisions

The A380 begs to differ...

http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2009/08/eas...

Yes I was aware of TCAS. There are some cool technologies out there. I am pretty sure out of all aircraft with autopilots, the amount with this technology is extraordinarily low. Especially if you are considering only personal aircraft and not ones designed to carry over 1,000 passengers.

The topic of conversation in this thread is about the system that the general population thinks about when they hear “airline autopilot”. Most folks would naturally think of commercial passenger planes and their (believed) capabilities.

Just a quick note - most of the larger aircraft with autopilots are most often flown under IFR (Instrument Flight Rules), which means that there is someone else (Air Traffic Controllers) managing all of the routing and collision avoidance for them.

Even pilots in IFR conditions are doing little more than maintaining a particular altitude and heading.

This means that a aircraft and vehicle autopilot have very different requirements. They are not, at all, doing the exact same things.

Which is silly, since pilots can absolutely take their eyes off the controls at cruising altitude and not slam into something. If, for some reason, the system disengages they would have ample time to take control of the plane. That is absolutely not true with an automobile, where in some situations, an action must be taken in milliseconds.

> From Elon's interview, he mentioned that 'autopilot' was a name akin to the flight autopilots.

Then he failed, as they are completely unrelated.

> Pilots are never expected to get their eyes off the controls.

This is also false. They need to be alert, but they most certainly do not need to be as attentive as keeping their hands on the controls unlike with Tesla.

Unlike the sibling comment below alluded too, many commercial airplane autopilot systems are advanced enough to land the plane completely on auto as well as some even automatically respond to TCAS alerts to avoid nearby aircraft.

That's only a reasonable explanation if that were the common understanding of what the term means. It is not.

> it’s anything but “autopilot” in any layman sense

To be fair, an autopilot, in the traditional sense, just maintains a heading and an altitude.

Autopilot can refer to everything between a "wing leveler", and a full-on automated landing system. So no, even in aviation there is no standard definition of what autopilot does.

Most commercial airline autopilots in use today could land the plane on auto if desired by the flight crew, so no, they don’t “just maintains a heading and an altitude”.

I think we all know that such technology exists. That is why I specifically said "in the traditional sense", to point out that I'm talking about what the word was invented for.

But you missed speed. “In the traditional sense”, that’s also handled.

There's lots of autopilot systems that smash into shit, sailboats are one of them, you can put your sailboat on autopilot and it's going to smash into stuff.

Samething with an airliner, autopilot will not avoid another aircraft.

> Samething with an airliner, autopilot will not avoid another aircraft.

Wrong! There are autopilots which integrate TCAS into the autopilot (A380 among them).

Source: http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2009/08/eas...

They exist. But collision avoidance is far from a necessary retirement. E.g. my father in law's private single engine. Autopilot is basically cruise control, but you know...for a pilot

There’s Autothrottle, which is more like cruise control. Autopilot controls attitude aka steering.

Tesla Autopilot is a combination of both steering and throttle control.

True. The point remains though...collision avoidance is not a requirement for autopilot in the context of planes (or boats)

GP didn’t say “not a requirement”, the poster said “will not avoid”, which is factually incorrect.

TCAS in a plane is like Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) in a car. It's active 100% of the time in cars, not just when you're using super-cruise-control or other automation.

Of course TCAS is always enabled while in flight and is technically unrelated to autopilot. That doesn’t negate the point that many Airbus planes will automatically follow RAs when on autopilot if that is enabled by the flight crew.

Airliners have Air Traffic Control to route them, removing all but the rarest of edge cases for "smashing into stuff".

Tesla autopilot is more capable than an airplane autopilot. An airplane on autopilot will crash into stationary objects in its path, by design. Thus, airplane autopilots require full pilot attention as well.

This thread happens with every Tesla crash, by the way:

1. Tesla crashes

2. Driver says autopilot was engaged

3. Long debate on HN about exact meaning of word "autopilot"

4. 9 times out of 10, Tesla log says autopilot wasn't on before the crash, or that obstacle was visibly in the path for more than enough time for the driver to take action (usually half in the lane and half out)

The other one time out of 10 the driver says the Tesla suddenly accelerated and drove through most of a strip mall.

Can someone explain why this is being downvoted? At least with regard to airplane autopilots, it is completely acurate.

I can explain. For about the first five minutes of the comment's life, the first sentence used a snippy tone. I got the message and removed the snippy part.

To be honest, I've only really heard this misunderstanding from non-owners.

The really scary ones are the ones that own it, know about the limitations, and intentionally bypass the safeguards.

Like this guy ... with an orange:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tesla-orange-hack/

I don't disagree, but I honestly have not really heard much from owners. Definitely not nearly enough to call it a representative sample.

Instead of your personal experience, how about data?

https://insideevs.com/tesla-autopilot-survey-results-98-unde...

Okay, again I'm not disagreeing with you, but those questions are about as leading as you can get. Ask a portion of the population "Did you know that meiosis is the process through which cells divide?" and you'll get a lot of yes's.

I do not own one, but I am on the Tesla Reddit pretty regularly. It gets a regular stream of posts from people about how often it tries to deviate them into turn lanes or other unexpected behavior.

To be clear, these are from people who really like the feature and find it useful, but they are really aware that it has to be watched just like if they were 100% manipulating the controls.

In boats we have had autopilot for decades. It takes the boat on a straight path to a point via GPS only. You must pay attention and correct course for obsticals in your path. Simple, logical and efficient.

Also, requiring the driver to pay attention on what the automation do is a bit unrealistic.

It's really difficult to stay focus and (mostly) do nothing at the same time. Monitoring automation is boring. Also switching from a passive mode to an active mode in few seconds in case of an emergency might be really hard.

I'm not sure the Tesla "autopilot" is designed in a way that really keeps the driver in the loop and active enough.

Tesla should have branded the current system “Copilot”, and reserved “Autopilot” for trumpeting true level 5 self-driving.

But you can hand off complete control to a co-pilot in a plane while you go use the restroom, etc. With autopilot you are supposed to be there to monitor it.

Guaranteed that there was a licensing issue or trademark issue that prevented that.

People who actually drive Tesla cars see a lot more information than people who see Tesla marketing. Market surveys of Tesla owners say that they aren't confused about it requiring driver attention.

Have you ever driven a Tesla?

Wait a sec, did they get to root cause of this accident? It's a bit early to be reaching a verdict.

And what are stats of accidents on Auto-pilot vs without? If less, I'd say it's a success.

From the photo, it looks like the car slowed down a lot before the collision. But you'd expect that anyway from AEB.

Agreed. I am a big fan of Tesla and I used to make excuses for them on this but I think it’s b.s. they didn’t rename it after the incident where the guy died. Cool marketing names do not outweigh being totally honest and up front.

If I made rat poison that looked like candy and named it “Yummy Candy Rat Poison” and some kid died coz they ate it, I’d deserve some blame regardless of parents keeping poison away from kids.

It isn't called full self driving, it is called auto-pilot. In aviation, auto-pilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators but assist them in controlling aircraft, allowing them to focus on broader aspects of operations.

Well context is important, the people who operate planes know exactly what autopilot in a specific plane means, the people who operate cars are generally aware that there are cars.

Tesla state that autopilot will "match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage."

I believe the problem lies in "Enhanced" and "Full self driving hardware". While this is an important point and is probably true, there should probably be bigger warnings that there is currently no full self driving software, and therefore, no full self driving.

Tesla has a Level 2 system. People who actually use it see more than just the marketing material you've quoted.

Not really. I am one of the people that actually use it. They have some warnings for sure, but you should probably note I also wrote the first comment in this thread.

The thing is that almost nobody knows what an Autopilot actually does. Even here on Hacker News you see comments to the effect of "why do we still need pilots, planes take off fly and land by themselves!"

I do not know of a commercial airline autopilot that does taxi / takeoff.

That's my point - the public perception (even among a technical crowd) is way off from the reality. People think an "Autopilot" does way more than it actually does.

I personally don’t agree, people know the pilots have a real role in the plane among even my non-tech friends, but it’s just anecdotal vs your anecdotal so it doesn’t make either of us right or wrong.

The Tesla autopilot doesn’t work in the air, either:

https://carbuzz.com/news/teens-take-tesla-model-s-for-joyrid...

This is the same argument people use every time, and that Tesla uses. The general public does not know that. It's an irresponsible name for the system and they know it.

And if Telsa required a pilots license to purchase one of their cars, this argument might hold water.

I don't think the naming is the problem. No matter what you call it, the fact that it works 99% of the time gives people confidence to continue using it, up until it doesn't work, and then there's no time to react. In a car, you generally have some space and time in front of you, but you usually have no lateral margin of error, and that assymmetry is what makes it different from planes and boats.

Let me put another option out there for you:

Tesla wants autopilot

Emergency services want autonomy in being able to shut the freeway down.

How about PUT THE FUCKING AUTOPILOT SYSTEM IN THE EMERGENCY vehicles -- such that THEY can report to ANY auto driving car "SLOW DOWN we are doing emergency services [HERE]"

And then you get both -- The emergency services vehicles should be freaking beacons to any self/auto driving car.

To assume that this was short-sighted on either side is correct. Tesla should have been thinking about this, emergency services should have been thinking about this.

Why doesnt Tesla take their Semi model and make a Fire-Engine model????

How about making them highly visible by, say, painting them red and putting flashing lights on top of them?

Difficult to blame the emergency vehicles when the semi-autonomous car fails to detect something that stands out so much.

I'm pretty confident that no system (beyond the visual and audio cues currently on emergency vehicles) is ready for implementation. Car mesh/broadcast networking is a tempting idea, but I'm not sure any of us are ready for it.

> Why doesnt Tesla take their Semi model and make a Fire-Engine model????

The automation in Tesla's vehicles is, and should be, designed around modern conditions, not a utopia. Otherwise disable all those features until that utopia arrives.

Or would we say collisions with pedestrians are okay until such pedestrians all have autonomous human beacons (made by Tesla, of course)?

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