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Comment by georgewfraser | Hacker News Reader

I have a model Y and what it has today is 80% as useful as a completely self driving car. It’s mostly self driving on the highway, and the situations it can’t handle are very predictable: toll booths, stopped cars in the middle of the road, things like that. You need to available to drive but you always have plenty of warning before you need to take over.

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80% as good is 1000% as dangerous. Tesla's vehicles perform just well enough to convince many users they're good enough to "self drive" and ignore while failing catastrophically in edge cases and absolutely not being ready to completely ignore. Tesla's reckless "autopilot" branding contributes to this.

My point is that it doesn’t fail in edge cases. It has very clear limitations, there are no surprises. Even if you were literally asleep at the wheel, the worst thing that would happen is it’d end up stopped in front of a traffic light, waiting for you to take over.

> the worst thing that would happen is it’d end up stopped in front of a traffic light, waiting

I get your overall point, but this particular statement is empirically false.

"very clear limitations" that users continue to ignore. Some of that is stupid users, some of that is users assuming that "autopilot" means more than it does because that term has already meant something for the last 40 years in our society - something that Tesla doesn't deliver on.

Tesla's warnings to put your hands on the wheel are obviously insufficient based on regular videos of drivers asleep at the wheel on the freeway (https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/18/21445168/tesla-driver-sle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhObsMnipS8 https://www.businessinsider.com/drivers-sleeping-in-tesla-ca... and many more). At a bare minimum, their code needs to bring the vehicle to a safe half rather than continue on its way forever dinging if the user refuses to interact with it.

And no, there are far worse things that can happen. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51645566 https://apnews.com/article/ca5e62255bb87bf1b151f9bf075aaadf

> Tesla's warnings to put your hands on the wheel are obviously insufficient based on regular videos of drivers asleep at the wheel on the freeway

Every Tesla owner will tell you that those videos where people are "falling asleep" are staged.

Why? because if you don't acknowledge the warnings, it will turn on the hazards stop and disable autopilot for the rest of the drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uw97Gx1lYw

That particular attack had been fixed, but I remember people disabling those warnings with oranges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYZrehVQouc

It's an arms race between Tesla being legally on the safe side, and drivers using the car as Tesla advertises it.

> That particular attack had been fixed

Which one?

> drivers using the car as Tesla advertises it.

I'm confused, How exactly is Tesla advertising the car where you don't have to pay attention? It even explicitly tells you to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention.

They call it Autopilot. On their car configuration tool, the text that appears in the biggest font says "Full Self-Driving Capability". The fine print doesn't matter - Tesla is advertising more than it can deliver.

Or this wonderful paragraph: "Navigate on Autopilot: automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars."

https://www.tesla.com/models/design#autopilot

> They call it Autopilot. On their car configuration tool, the text that appears in the biggest font says "Full Self-Driving Capability".

I don't think you understand. "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving Capability" (FSD) are two completely different features. Autopilot comes free as standar. While FSD is an optional feature, that adds things like: Navigate on Autopilot, Summon, Auto Park, Auto Lane Change etc.

FSD Beta can take you from point A to B with minimal to zero interventions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaJCYYiDzQQ

> Navigate on Autopilot: automatic driving from highway on-ramp to off-ramp including interchanges and overtaking slower cars."

But it current does that. I used it everyday on my commute! That feature is called "Navigate on autopilot".

https://youtu.be/j6S_-35O_w8?t=406

"Autopilot" and "Navigate on Autopilot" are separate features? "Automatic driving" actually means "carefully supervised driving"? "Full self driving" means the exact opposite and requires your full attention?

If you can't see how this is massively confusing and misleading to consumers you've been a Tesla user for too long and need to step back for.some objectivity.

This argument without data is just as useless as Tesla's pro-AP argument without data.

Reality is not black and white. You need to strike a balance.

The claim of "1000% as dangerous" is sensational, and frankly, should be backed up by facts, or else you are just smearing mud.

> you always have plenty of warning before you need to take over

This only has to be false once.

I'd also like to highlight that sometimes AP has frightening regressions. One case was labeled "barrier lust", where - on a divider - AP would follow the wrong white line, and steer the car towards a barrier. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopil...

It was fixed, after Walter Huang died through such a case.

Until the behavior returned some months later: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_bac...

So please be careful. Regardless of the value you put on your own life, car accidents impact more than just yourself.

Sounds like lane steering and adaptative cruise control on my 19k$ Toyota Corolla.

How well does that handle poorly marked sections of road? I have a similar system on a non-Tesla and that was one of its main weaknesses relative to AP.

Usually they need clear lane markings, at least one white line needs to be visible for the system to latch on.

Snowy roads, dirt roads etc. are out of scope for those.

Love the snarkiness. But no. The cruise control in your Toyota Corolla can't quite do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWS9jjhLYSM

But that’s not what the GP comment is talking about, no? They’re specifically talking about self driving on highways. FSD beta works on city streets. On highways you’d use auto steer and traffic aware cruise control, which is exactly same as lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control in a Toyota.

Can the Toyota Safety Sense system perform an automatic lane change on the highway? I don't think it can. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I’m not sure, but I don’t believe it can.

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