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Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

I don't get why people even consider driving hands-off on any of the autopilot-like technologies around. Maybe in the cleanest possible conditions on a highway in slow moving rush hour traffic; and even then hands on the wheel expecting the worst. Do folks really have that much faith in technology? :-O

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Isn't it because it is advertised as "Full Self Driving"? Not everyone is an expert on AI or follows auto news in detail.

The name "Autopilot" for their lane-keeping feature clearly relies on most people not knowing how autopilot works in planes, because it's heavily implied to be autonomous driving and it's not. It's just a Tesla scam.

THIS. If you asked a bunch of pilots about the capability level they'd expect from something called "autopilot", then compared with the answers you'd get from a bunch of Joe Averages...yeah. When people don't know squat, and they hear some Marketing-speak, and they'd like to believe - the next thing you know, they've convinced themselves that Santa's magic elves are making it all work, and nothing bad could ever possibly happen.

I don't think its clear they are relying on people not knowing how autopilot works on planes because I don't think most people know autopilot on planes exist for the most part. 10-15% of the US population has never been on a plane.

AFAIK pilots don't need to hold the yoke for autopilot to work on planes, but this is required in Tesla.

I have been doing an experiment for a while now where I rent different EVs for a day from Turo to see if there is one special one that will make me give up my favorite car that I have had for years (06 Mazda 3)

Rented a Tesla for an entire day yesterday and I see the appeal. I only tried autopilot on the highway with straight or curvy lanes. Handled it perfectly and really helped cover like 70% of my road trip (the part with straight roads for miles)

Before this, I rented a Ford mach-e about a month ago with the latest Bluecruise and did the same test, was constantly "ping ponging" back and forth in the lane and essentially gave me no confidence whatsoever in its abilities.

I then tested a Bolt EUV after the Ford but before the Tesla. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a Bolt EUV with Supercruise but at this point it does not matter, the supercruise is on the Bolt EUV which is not comparable to the Tesla in other areas and all the other GM models which have it blow past my budget.

Autopilot is really a relaxing system when you have been driving for hours. It politely nags you for what seems like every 5 mins so its not like I can fall asleep (at least I wouldn't dare do that) but it really takes some cognitive load off.

Was also raining heavily for some of the day and Autopilot detected this and made it clear on the screen to be extra cautious. Seemed to handle it perfectly fine but I was overly cautious anyway.

My assessment at the end of the day is that given Tesla's excellent software compared to Ford and Chevy, their amazing charging experience compared to EVgo/Chargepoint, and the overall Autopilot system, their cars are in a league of their own compared to other EVs and its just a waste of time to even consider the others.

I am still not sold on EVs vs getting another Gas car but Tesla jumped to the top of my list for an EV. Like I mentioned I decided im likely to not even waste my time and money trying VW and Hyundai (they were next on my list to test). Not sure yet though.

Wish we could get at least the basic highway version on all cars. I think it would be a big positive for so many people. I never really believed until I finally tried it out for an entire day. People NEED to give it a day of actual testing before making an assessment.

I've been pretty happy with the ADAS system on my Mercedes E-Class. Over time I've learned what it does well and what it doesn't do well. But yes, of course, hands on the wheel 100% of the time, same amount of attention as if I were driving fully manually.

I see it as mainly a way to avoid leg/foot fatigue, especially in heavier traffic, and also as a sort of backup. I think of myself still as the "primary system", but the ADAS will help me stay in lane if I get distracted on a long drive, or if I don't notice the car in front of my braking hard. I haven't needed it to save me from anything (yet, knock on wood), but it's nice to have it there.

It is absolutely bonkers to me that some people think these sorts of systems allow them to not pay attention, take their hands off the wheel, do things on their phones, etc. Even Tesla's so-called "FSD" (with the scariest of scare quotes) isn't an excuse for that sort of thing.

I would not trust something that drives as fast as that car does in that type of fog.

But I trust my open pilot device, but a large part of that is that I can see on the screen actually what it intends to do.

as far as I'm concerned and I know it's not entirely feasible, but it should be all cars on the road are autopilot or none are. and until then if someone is driving in autopilot there should be a big ass flashing indicator light that I can see to warn me that extra caution needs to be taken around that car

The Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot system has special warning lights when operating in autonomous mode. It is generally considered to be technically superior to Tesla's system in most respects.

https://group.mercedes-benz.com/innovation/product-innovatio...

definitely a step in the right direction but needs more flashyness

I'll use the autopilot in regular traffic on highways only. But I'm also aware that glare will mess with the cameras in my Mach-E.

Also, the driver attention system warns me if I'm not paying attention to traffic.

I.e. know when to use it and be aware of its limitations.

I use it to take over while I take my eyes off the road for 1-3 seconds to adjust the GPS navigation / radio, or plug my phone in for charging when it's otherwise safe-ish.

99% reliable is very convincing at looking like 100% reliable. People get comfortable with things pretty quickly.

Yes and every halving of that 1% error is more than twice as hard to do with neural net training. At some point more principled control algorithms are needed.

Because for all the angst and outrage at HN, ask yourself how many people do you personally know that have been killed by Autopilot?

"It hasn't killed any one I know" is a deeply inadequate standard. There's a lot of monstrously deadly things that haven't killed anyone I know.

I mean I don’t know anyone who’s been killed by a THERAC-25, either, but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to go under one.

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