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Comment by bazooka2th | Hacker News Reader

From Wired's "People Keep Confusing Their Teslas for Self-Driving Cars" (https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-crash-dui/):

A spokesperson pointed out that the owner's manual reads, “Autosteer is not designed to, and will not, steer Model S around objects partially or completely in the driving lane”.

I haven't seen the encouragement to not pay attention. In some ad on TV, maybe it was for a new Cadillac, the driver opens a soda with both hands off the wheel, and that seemed to be as far as they were willing to go.

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Yes, because people are known for diligently reading fine print. /s

Cadillac has an eye-tracking system that deactivates the self-driving features if you aren't watching the road, and their system is limited to specific highways they have mapped.

Tesla has a ridiculously inadequate attentiveness control, and they do little to nothing to remind people who regularly fail to keep their hands on the wheel. They don't nag people because they want them to believe the car is more capable than it actually is.

And, I say that as a proud owner of a Model S with Autopilot v1.

If their life is on the line they'd be stupid not to. Which, of course, a lot of people are. But the fact it's common doesn't take away the blame

Almost nobody reads the entire owner's manual for their car, and even those who do read them skim over warnings like that.

The warnings are shown on the behind-wheel display every time you engage Autopilot. Unmissable.

> Cadillac has an eye-tracking system that deactivates the self-driving features if you aren't watching the road, and their system is limited to specific highways they have mapped.

I don't even get the point of that. Why even take one's hands off the wheel(or if knee-steering, one's foot off the pedal) if they can't even take their eyes off the road? I haven't driven one of these vehicles so maybe I'm missing something. It seems intuitive that automation would free us to do other tasks, but I'm not seeing that in these early "self-driving" implementations. It's more like these car companies are actually selling these cars as experiments, at the expense of people's wallets and possibly their lives.

Yes, because they definitely do not call the technology "Auto-pilot".

It's called "Autosteer". That's misleading to non techies who don't have a firm grasp on the limitations of the tech.

They should be legally required to call it something like "lane assist".

You're right, 'lane assist' is probably more appropriate. However, it's not 'autobrake' or 'auto-no-crash', the feature is actually called 'autopilot'. (why does that article say 'autosteer')

An autopilot maintains heading, and that's all. Many sailors are not techies --- an autopilot on a boat will run you right into an obstacle.

> An autopilot maintains heading, and that's all.

Aircraft autopilots can follow a flight plan, maintain an altitude or rate of climb/descent, do an instrument approach, and (using ADS-B) perform an automated avoidance maneuver when another aircraft is too close.

Some of them can. Others are no more than a gyroscope linked to the rudder.

Sure, but that's like pointing out that Toyota Corollas exist.

In the context of a conversation where people say “car” implies something capable of 200MPH, that would be worth pointing out.

I need to stop being poor and fly a citation. Closest I seen Garmin 430 do is flight path using waypoint.

It says “autosteer” because that’s the name of one of the components. Tesla’s Autopilot is autosteer, traffic-aware cruise control, and some safety features like automatic emergency braking.

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