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Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

arstechnica.com

91–100 of 388 posts

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#92

Somewhat related, there are now robotaxis giving rides to customers in Austin with no driver, and no safety monitor inside at all. Progress, for sure.

Waymo's been in Austin for a while! Seeing them on MOPAC, when I don't think they're supposed to be on the highway, is always charming.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#94

Wait a minute. My recent-ish car has LKAS. It recognizes white lines (or possibly curbs too) and if both boundaries of the lane are recongized, will steer for you - for 10 seconds maybe, before it nags you provide some steering input. But in those 10 seconds it's perfectly capable of smoothly steering around bends in the road on its own. And it is a useful safety feature even if only nudging the steering wheel while…

Yeah I don't get Tesla's move here. Lane Keep Assist has been a standard feature in most new cars, EV or not, starting around ~2019ish. IIRC, the EU now has regulations mandating lane keep assist in all new vehicles sold. Heck, a cheap base model Maza 3 I rented had lane keep assist. Tesla only stands to lose by gatekeeping what's now a basic feature behind a paywall.

It checks out with all the other awful software changes they're making like whatever "curvature assist" is that randomly brakes where it doesn't need to, or when it gets confused about what road I'm on while on the freeway and suddenly drops my 75mph cruise control to 55mph and slams the brakes.

I miss having a dumb cruise control.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#95

Tesla's autopilot was so clumsy that I stopped using it and forgot about it years ago. I like the adaptive cruise control though, it is more transparent and decidedly more of a benefit, except for its phantom braking moments. Autopilot's requirement that your hands be on the wheel (and do nothing) is a strain over time, definitely boring, and a terrible interface. I don't understand why people would pay for such an a…

I drive one on Dutch roads, and a lot of the back roads (60km/h) are one lane with dotted lines on the side like here: [1]

If you turn on TACC, it will constantly whine that you're hugging the side of 'your lane'. But it's one lane for both directions, you're supposed to hug your side!

In my SAAB I used cruise control anywhere I expected to maintain speed for any amount of time. In the Y I don't bother on this type of road because it bitches at me constantly and sometimes even jerks me to the middle of the lane. That's never happened with oncoming traffic but I'm not risking it.

[1]https://shorturl.at/jSQhP (shortened, Maps links are huge)

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#96
A new Tesla, without subscription, now has worse Steering Assist than a $22K Toyota Corolla.

Back when Autopilot launched, in consumer cars, it was pretty unique. But the market has moved on significantly, and basic Steering Assist/Full-Speed-Range Automatic Cruise Control, are pretty universal features today.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#97
post #18

My guess is Tesla is desperately in need of Q1 revenue and they want people to scarcity buy FSD lifetime @ $8K. Otherwise the strategy doesn’t make any sense. They’re saying FSD and basic Autopilot will go behind subscription and that subscription prices are expected to go up. Basically laying out that they’re planning to lock you into a subscription and then price gouge. It’s so transparent that I think the point is…

My guess is they made FSD subscriptions a requirement for Elon's big compensation package.

10 million active subscriptions. It’s one of the lower targets to meet.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#98

Tesla's autopilot was so clumsy that I stopped using it and forgot about it years ago. I like the adaptive cruise control though, it is more transparent and decidedly more of a benefit, except for its phantom braking moments. Autopilot's requirement that your hands be on the wheel (and do nothing) is a strain over time, definitely boring, and a terrible interface. I don't understand why people would pay for such an a…

I would recommend testing out the latest FSD. It’s made huge forward steps vs what was there before.

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#99
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if professional medical equipment designed to save lives had no liability clauses? Except they do. Which is why there's FDA certification and regulation and the Lifepak 15s I used as a paramedic cost around $40,000. Mercedes was also willing to put their money where their mouth was and accept liability for vehicle software issues. (Cue here the Tesla stans talking about "how limited" that was. Almost perhaps…

It sounds like the point you're making is that manufacturers taking liability will make all of this unaffordable for normal people, similar to how medicine has become unaffordable? I don't think that's actually your point, but it sort of sounds like it.

There are probably elements of that but my read of the post I replied to was "why on earth would you expect manufacturers of equipment to accept liability for misuse?" (I actually agree about misuse, but malfunction is not the same.)

And "in the context of something that is designed to save lives"... well, absolutely, many manufacturers do and will and even "have to".

Re: Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

#100
post #69

How much does braking cost ?

$0.00000008 per Newton of deceleration force applied to the vehicle.

Pressing the brake pedal and maintaining a stationary position is billed at a rate of $0.003 per second of immobility.

Energy dissipation during the braking event costs an additional $0.00001 per Joule of heat generated.

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