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Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

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Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#41

You know I take issue with Tesla on these incidents. They're trying to have it both ways. They market it as 'autopilot' to appeal to the dream of complete self-driving but if an accident actually happens it can never be the fault of autopilot. After all it's required for the driver to be paying attention so if they didn't override autopilot it's obvious they weren't paying attention. Really I'd like to see the govern…

Let me put another option out there for you:

Tesla wants autopilot

Emergency services want autonomy in being able to shut the freeway down.

How about PUT THE FUCKING AUTOPILOT SYSTEM IN THE EMERGENCY vehicles -- such that THEY can report to ANY auto driving car "SLOW DOWN we are doing emergency services [HERE]"

And then you get both -- The emergency services vehicles should be freaking beacons to any self/auto driving car.

To assume that this was short-sighted on either side is correct. Tesla should have been thinking about this, emergency services should have been thinking about this.

Why doesnt Tesla take their Semi model and make a Fire-Engine model????

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#43
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am a big fan of Tesla and I used to make excuses for them on this but I think it’s b.s. they didn’t rename it after the incident where the guy died. Cool marketing names do not outweigh being totally honest and up front. If I made rat poison that looked like candy and named it “Yummy Candy Rat Poison” and some kid died coz they ate it, I’d deserve some blame regardless of parents keeping poison away from ki…

It isn't called full self driving, it is called auto-pilot. In aviation, auto-pilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators but assist them in controlling aircraft, allowing them to focus on broader aspects of operations.

Well context is important, the people who operate planes know exactly what autopilot in a specific plane means, the people who operate cars are generally aware that there are cars.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#44
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn’t agree more. It baffles me how Tesla can get away with such blatant false advertising (it’s anything but “autopilot” in any layman sense), especially in light of there being multiple incidents of bad accidents which showed them at fault.

From Elon's interview, he mentioned that 'autopilot' was a name akin to the flight autopilots. Pilots are never expected to get their eyes off the controls. This crash is unfortunate and should be investigated. But autopilot naming is something I don't think is the problem.

That's only a reasonable explanation if that were the common understanding of what the term means. It is not.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#45
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am a big fan of Tesla and I used to make excuses for them on this but I think it’s b.s. they didn’t rename it after the incident where the guy died. Cool marketing names do not outweigh being totally honest and up front. If I made rat poison that looked like candy and named it “Yummy Candy Rat Poison” and some kid died coz they ate it, I’d deserve some blame regardless of parents keeping poison away from ki…

It isn't called full self driving, it is called auto-pilot. In aviation, auto-pilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators but assist them in controlling aircraft, allowing them to focus on broader aspects of operations.

The thing is that almost nobody knows what an Autopilot actually does. Even here on Hacker News you see comments to the effect of "why do we still need pilots, planes take off fly and land by themselves!"

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#46
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla, to save money, is trying to build autopilot from regular video cameras in visible spectrum. EDIT: Some models still contain other sensors, but Musk has been trying to go with purely optical for a long time.

I really think they're going to have to consider using forward facing radar as well.

They do. After the Florida crash, they lean even more heavily on the forward facing radar.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/upgrading-autopilot-seeing-world-...

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#47

You know I take issue with Tesla on these incidents. They're trying to have it both ways. They market it as 'autopilot' to appeal to the dream of complete self-driving but if an accident actually happens it can never be the fault of autopilot. After all it's required for the driver to be paying attention so if they didn't override autopilot it's obvious they weren't paying attention. Really I'd like to see the govern…

I couldn’t agree more. It baffles me how Tesla can get away with such blatant false advertising (it’s anything but “autopilot” in any layman sense), especially in light of there being multiple incidents of bad accidents which showed them at fault.

Couldn’t agree more. People who argue for Elon’s meaning of auto-pilot are wrong. Unless 100% of Tesla drivers are 100% aware of the limitations calling it auto-pilot is dangerous.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#48

I wonder if it is imprudent to create too many vehicles that have partial self-driving capability before we have ones that can do 100% of it. Instead of to the point where you can take your attention away from the road, but not to the point where it can reliably avoid accidents on your behalf. Too many people aren't wise enough to use the partial autonomous technology without abusing it.

Would it not be better engineering to have the roads driving the cars, as opposed to having the cars drive the roads?

If the roads had sensors in the "bots dotts" and would track and steer all the volume of traffic - isnt that better than all the infantile-AI-cars doing it?

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#49

You know I take issue with Tesla on these incidents. They're trying to have it both ways. They market it as 'autopilot' to appeal to the dream of complete self-driving but if an accident actually happens it can never be the fault of autopilot. After all it's required for the driver to be paying attention so if they didn't override autopilot it's obvious they weren't paying attention. Really I'd like to see the govern…

Let me put another option out there for you: Tesla wants autopilot Emergency services want autonomy in being able to shut the freeway down. How about PUT THE FUCKING AUTOPILOT SYSTEM IN THE EMERGENCY vehicles -- such that THEY can report to ANY auto driving car "SLOW DOWN we are doing emergency services [HERE]" And then you get both -- The emergency services vehicles should be freaking beacons to any self/auto drivin…

I'm pretty confident that no system (beyond the visual and audio cues currently on emergency vehicles) is ready for implementation. Car mesh/broadcast networking is a tempting idea, but I'm not sure any of us are ready for it.

Re: Tesla ‘on Autopilot’ slams into parked fire truck on freeway

#50
You know how stoplights are in tune with emergency vehicle flashing lights? I think the auto pilot systems need to get more in tune with those systems as well. An alert needs to fire when it detects an emergency.

I've heard of people not turning off their cruise control when going through an accident area. Boneheads. This is no different - just involving the thing after cruise control.

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