[HN Gopher] Why Tesla Autopilot shouldn't be used in as many pla...
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       Why Tesla Autopilot shouldn't be used in as many places as you
       think
        
       Author : tallowen
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2023-12-10 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
        
       | thebruce87m wrote:
       | > More than 800,000 vehicles have Autopilot
       | 
       | While this is technically true, since Autopilot is a standard
       | feature isn't it more accurate to say that every Tesla ( almost
       | 5,000,000 vehicles) has Autopilot?
        
         | drewnick wrote:
         | Every Tesla from late 2014 onward. My May 2014 Tesla has no
         | autopilot. That really hurt at first... buy a car for over
         | $100k and it's obsolete a few months later when Autopilot and
         | dual motor were announced.
        
           | thebruce87m wrote:
           | Didn't realise that, I thought they retrofitted a lot of
           | hardware over the years.
        
             | simfree wrote:
             | Only if you paid for an upgrade and your car was compatible
             | with said upgrade. Note that there are multiple different
             | versions of these upgrades.
             | 
             | The self-driving tech was originally powered by now Intel
             | owned firm, but that firm pulled the plug on Tesla getting
             | more chips from them when Tesla started making full self
             | driving claims.
        
       | ciconia wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/yQwmR
        
       | dham wrote:
       | I'm not sure why Tesla's adaptive cruise control with lane assist
       | is under more scrutiny than any other manufacturer. Every car has
       | it at this point.
        
         | toss1 wrote:
         | Perhaps start by considering that Musk makes far grander claims
         | about his "autopilot" and "full self driving" than other
         | manufacturers.
         | 
         | He's already sold many thousands of FSD upgrades with the claim
         | that the cars would be worth multiple times their purchase cost
         | because they could be an Uber-like self-driving 'goldmine' for
         | their owners when they would be updated by 2022-23. Yet last
         | year and this were full of news about how badly FSD forks up
         | events such as left turns and encountering fire trucks.
         | 
         | Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Musk
         | really hasn't put up anything more than smoke and mirrors.
         | 
         | If you want to go further, he's also choosing to be a very
         | public liar. E.g., when Alex Jones first wanted to come back to
         | Twitter, Musk's public response was "My firstborn child died in
         | my arms. I felt his last heartbeat, I have no mercy for anyone
         | who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or
         | fame." That is as crystal clear a statement as one could make
         | that Alex Jones and vile liars and child-death profiteers like
         | him are unwelcome -- permanently. Yet, today less than two
         | years later, Jones' account was restored. That's just the most
         | recent egregious lie.
         | 
         | So yes, making vaporware claims and taking money for them
         | without fulfillment, and publicly lying about things people
         | care a lot about, often merits additional scrutiny.
        
           | meepmorp wrote:
           | > Musk's public response was "My firstborn child died in my
           | arms. I felt his last heartbeat, I have no mercy for anyone
           | who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or
           | fame."
           | 
           | It's worth noting that Musk's ex-wife, Justine, disputes this
           | version of events.
           | 
           | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/justine-
           | mu...
        
             | ProjectArcturis wrote:
             | So he was lying then too?
        
               | meepmorp wrote:
               | Maybe, though not all untrue things people say are lies.
               | The death of a child can really fuck people up, and
               | distortions of memory aren't out of the question. This is
               | one situation where I'm personally willing to be
               | charitable
        
         | SkyPuncher wrote:
         | I found Teslas far less predictable because it attempts to work
         | in so many situations.
         | 
         | Most adaptive cruise is "simple" distance plus "simple" check
         | for lines. It's intuitive and generally easy to understand when
         | it will and will not work.
         | 
         | For me, Tesla does soooo much stuff that it's hard to figure
         | out if I should plan to intervene.
        
       | superduty wrote:
       | Garbage article from the very first sentence. Par for Bezos-run
       | media.
        
       | ProjectArcturis wrote:
       | I already think it should be used in zero places. They lie with
       | statistics to make it seem much safer than it really is [0], and
       | Autopilot has a habit of disengaging 1-2 seconds before a crash,
       | which lets it escape blame [1]. Frankly it's a regulatory failure
       | that let Musk sell vaporware for years.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/04/26/tesla-...
       | 
       | [1] https://futurism.com/tesla-nhtsa-autopilot-report
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-10 23:02 UTC)