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Comment by bmat | Hacker News Reader

For every tragedy, there are tragedies avoided. I can attest to a few. In the last 10,000 miles, Autopilot has: safely swerved to avoid a car that would have sideswiped me, preemptively braked after detecting the 2nd car ahead (not visible to me) had slammed on its brakes, and avoided colliding with a completely stopped vehicle in the center lane of the freeway.

And FWIW I've never felt misled about Autopilot's capabilities. I started off skeptical and it's since earned my partial trust in limited scenarios. Ironically its hiccups actually make me more attentive since, ya know, I don't want it to kill me.

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How many accidents did you have per 10k miles in your last car? I've never had an accident in the last 200k miles, across three cars; none of which had anything more advanced than regular cruise control.

Zero accidents in 200k miles, so "tragedies avoided" was probably the wrong way to put it. My point is: for every one tragedy, there are hundreds of little ways Autopilot makes everyone on the road safer.

In the last 10,000 miles I had no accidents. In fact, I had none in the last 50,000 miles. It is a big question if any of what you mention here would be as much as a touch, if you did not have autopilot in the first place.

That's fair. In ~200k miles of driving I've also had zero accidents so maybe it's a stretch to call these things 'tragedies avoided'. But the point stands that Autopilot does little things every day to improve safety, but they get little media coverage since they're mundane and boring.

That squarely puts Autopilot in the "Driver Aid" category. That is fine, just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted.

Before owning a Tesla I did feel like Autopilot was overhyped, but I now realize that's more because of media coverage than anything Tesla is actively conveying. The vehicle software actively encourages driver attentiveness. Moreover when you actually experience Autopilot, it becomes abundantly clear that it can't drive unassisted.

> Moreover when you actually experience Autopilot, it becomes abundantly clear that it can't drive unassisted.

I think it's different: On long stretches of highway, it actually can drive mostly unassisted. It can't drive unassisted in city traffic or in construction sites, but I totally understand why people would overrate its capabilities. In clear and good conditions, it's actually more than a simple drive assistant.

Then don't call it Autopilot and stop saying it will be able to drive you on the highway soon.

> just don't go telling people that it can drive unassisted.

No one does. Literally no one. No owner, not Tesla themselves, not their website, not their sellers. Why do people keep bringing this up. Everybody knows it is not full self-driving, yes we all know, yes and? Where does this zealotry come from?

Their marketing for for a long time structured such that you got the idea that is was a literal autonomous driving ability. They've only toned it down after multiple accident, and I'm sure it's the reason so many people still believe it to this day.

So the "problem" you referring to is solved? Their marketing is good now? I just think that there is no reason keep repeating the old things then that are not relevant anymore, that don't even refer to anything anymore and only create a lot of confusion.

(Let's just assume it was a problem, even though I don't ever remember being fooled by it or seing any commercial or anything without a disclaimer "NOT FULLY AUTONOMOUS SELF-DRIVING, REQUIRES DRIVER ATTENTION".)

They should start with not using a misleading name, Autopilot.

Autopilot is not a misleading name actually. You, the press and others just have ingrained a false definition of the word. "An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without constant manual control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the vehicle."

If everyone defines Autopilot as an automatic system, shouldn't the definition in the dictionaries be updated? That was a rhetorical question, because it happens all the time.

Besides, Tesla claim that it can drive you unassisted on the highway, so they are very much coining that definition as well.

Everyone does not. This is why you see this many people have a problem with how you seem to use that word.

Not everyone as the pedantic everyone - it's stupid to argue semantics. Tesla claims when you order a car that it has

> Full Self-Driving Capability

And in my experience 9 out 10 people take that literally.

From the hundreds of YouTube videos where people sleep at the wheel of their Tesla or do something else.

Are you making Tesla inc responsible for videos that some other people put up on the internet? How would you even propose to police this, to make it illegal to use a car in a video unless the usage is somehow approved by the car manufacturer?

- Tesla makes a product and calls it Autopilot

- Autopilot has an option for "full self driving capabilities" (with lots of promises for the future and an unclear description what it actually can do right now)

- People buy a Tesla and indeed seem to have a self-driving car if they sleep at the wheel

- Tesla doesn’t attempt to make it right that this shouldn’t be done as far as I can tell

- Some people believe that Teslas drive themselves mostly.

Is Tesla directly responsible for these videos? Not directly, but at least they benefit from a highly suggestive product.

Could they do more to reduce the suggestive marketing? Absolutely. Do they want to? Probably not. Should they? I don’t know. That is what we’re discussing here.

I have a bit of a background with medical devices. For these, you have to make it absolutely clear what the device is for and what not. You also have to have a post market surveillance system that monitors how people use or abuse your medical device. From that perspective, Tesla could be doing more to have their driving assistant be perceived in a more realistic way.

Unfortunately, it's probably down to the choice of name "Autopilot", that leads folk to make assumptions.

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