I do appreciate that my car can do full distance control and assist if I am drifting, but it doesn't control itself, so I can never disengage. Personally I feel that this is wonderful and should be the limit. Anything past that should just be fully autonomous. Otherwise you're asking for trouble.
I can't imagine trying to focus on supervising an AI pilot without that kind of feedback.
An airplane autopilot is a dumb device, in that it does execute _exactly_ the plan you tell it to, and it is up to the pilot to at all times decide whether the current plan still makes sense or needs to be altered. So the pilot makes the strategic decisions, and leaves most of the physical tasks of flying to the autopilot.
I find myself using my M3 w/FSD in exactly the same way, as that I put on autosteer pretty much immediately when I'm out of the driveway, but I constantly nudge it into the lane that I want it to be in (by using the turn signal) or push the accelerator when I think it is taking too long pondering a turn. So i leave the physical driving (keep lane and distance) to the car but manage the car to always go exactly where I want it.
I have no trouble staying alert this way when doing medium long drives. Long highway drives where autopilot is so good that it requires no manual interaction is where the trouble starts and I find it hard to keep paying attention.
This is where in an airplane you have a copilot and can discuss strategic things like overnight stops, fuel stops, etc... Maybe Tesla needs a built-in chatbot to make me do that :)
I get what you're saying about the physical/strategic split, but my perception is that automobile autopilots are simply not good enough to be trusted with the "physical" stuff in a hands-off way like an airplane's can. And that's mostly because driving a car in a straight line down a highway is way harder than flying a plane in a straight line in an empty sky.
Exactly!!!!!!
The trouble is when your attention wanes and you don't know exactly when you should be paying attention. What I found is the small amount of automation my car does is wonderful to keep my exhaustion down. When I drove for 4 hours in my 2012 prius, it was a chore, i had to do ALL the mental math myself. When I drive my 2023 CX-50 I have to pay attention at least 30% less, and that 30% is a massive difference, it feels like 90%. And any time my attention wanes, the car starts complaining because I am drifting or not putting enough immediate response to the road. It becomes a "pay attention quickly" wake-up call that happens within seconds of attention waning.
The worry is when the car doesn't snap you back into that attention mode, and you just trust it, right up to the problem.
These augmented systems will probably reduce the risk of accidents so greatly that the value proposition for Level 5 driving systems just won't be there.
I've driven a lot for decades and frankly enjoy driving. I drove from TPA to SLC via PHX and back for fun. But I will pay $500/mo level-5 subscription for a comfortable car that drives itself.
Volvo was talking about level 3 back in 2017, but they gave up.[1] Level 3 means that the system may ask the driver to take over, but if the driver does not do so, the system must get the vehicle to a safe condition. Preferably pulled over out of traffic, but as least stopped without hitting anything. The driver is not required to watch the road.
The serious players are trying to get to level 4, where the driver is not expected to take over but the set of roads you can use is limited.
e.g. let's say you have a level 2 system which starts auto-evading, suddenly steering without user input, the user is likely to reflexively try counter-steering in response.
The value proposition of L5 systems is also the not driving part.
Even if a hypothetical, future Tesla FSD sometimes crashes in ways that could be prevented had the driver payed attention, it could still be statistically safer than a fully human driver (ie the number of FSD crashes even if left unattended < the number of crashes by humans driving).
To clarify, I'm not talking about the current state of FSD, I'm talking about a hypothetical, future Level 3.
You're free to not use it. But if Tesla FSD is safer than the average driver (even if that's because the average driver is on their phone) then, going back to your statement, it is more useful than dangerous for the average driver.
Intuitively I would have agreed with you, except Tesla has been doing it for years and their cars are statistically safer by every metric (fatalities, indicents, etc.).
Compared to what population? Older, tech-savvy people buying 60k-120k usd vehicles? And do you mean in full self-driving mode Beta, which Tesla won't allow you to use unless you have a track record of save driving?