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from the be-extra-careful-about-the-other-"driver" dept.
"Oh Jeeeesus": Drivers react to Tesla's full self-driving beta release
Last week, Tesla released an early version of its long-awaited "full self-driving" software to a limited number of customers. It was arguably Tesla's biggest Autopilot update ever. The software enables Tesla vehicles to autonomously navigate the vast majority of common roadway situations and complete many trips from start to finish.
[...] In another video, Brandon's Tesla was making a left turn but wasn't turning sharply enough to avoid hitting a car parked on the opposite side of the cross street. "Oh Jeeeesus," Brandon said as he grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it to the left. "Oh my God," Brandon's passenger added.
"That was a good example of this is still beta and how important it is to have control at all times," Brandon said. "It just steered directly into the back of this parked car, and it wasn't going to brake."
To be fair to Tesla, we don't know that either of these incidents would have necessarily led to a crash. Maybe the software would have realized its mistake and hit the brakes at the last second. And Brandon's overall impression of the technology was positive.
Minutes earlier, Brandon had raved about the software's performance. "Compared to when we did the drive two days ago, it's so much smoother," Brandon said. "The improvements from two software releases ago is incredible."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2020, @10:53PM (2 children)
Autopilot is a industry standard term for aircraft. What does it mean for an automobile anyway? Automobiles are driven. They aren't piloted. An automobile doesn't need to maintain altitude, and if they maintained a strict heading you'd end up stuck in a field. So an "autopilot" system for a car is like saying a self-driven airplane. It implies some form of autonomy but it actually makes no sense with regards to what those terms actually means so it is left up to interpretation (or RTFM). And Tesla knew that people were going to interpret the term in their favor as part of their marketing. So yes, Tesla would have been better off just creating a new term for their system, rather than purposely misusing an aviation term as a marketing buzzword for an automobile. Clearly you must have been dropped on your head a few times when you were a baby because you're too fucking retarded to understand that.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Monday November 02 2020, @11:26PM (1 child)
your smartphone is not a phone and your laptop is not a computer. your car door is not a door because doors were around before cars. your refrigerator is not a refrigerator because it's not cooled by dumping a huge block of ice into it weekly. i gotcha. you're trying to be technically correct by being purposely dense. thing is, you're not even technically correct.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2020, @11:59PM
An to summarize your argument, a Tesla is an airplane, which is the only way it could have an autopilot and have it be perfectly clear what exactly the system does and doesn't do.