"...Tesla ought to have a NHTSA-reported crash total of 70 since last summer to be comparable with Ford’s rate. Instead, Tesla reported 516 crashes."
When you go to purchase Autopilot on the Tesla website [0], it says in the first sentence: "The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
On Ford's website regarding their Blue Cruise[1]: "Blue Cruise allows you to operate your vehicle hands-free while being monitored by a driver-facing camera to make sure you're keeping your eyes on the road."
If anything, Ford seems to be more bold and brazen with their approach here.
[0] https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#overview
[1] https://www.ford.com/technology/driver-assist-technology/#bl...
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
"Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time."
"Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
"The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat."
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
> Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.
There is no way for Tesla to know that their cars have the hardware needed for full self-driving capabilities because they don’t know what hardware is needed for that.
Also the branding of their “Autopilot” with a capital A allows them to make up whatever definition they want for it and lets customers (understandably) confuse it with the standard definition of “autopilot” without a capital A.
Musk has been lying about full self-driving for years: https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...
Tesla has already been done for false advertising once in court. Tesla didn't even try to argue the case: https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/tesla-ordered-upgrade-self-dr...
Now Tesla is hoping to avoid being done for fraud by calling their "full self-driving" a "failure" instead of an outright fraud: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/12/business/tesla-fsd-autopi...
But with years worth of lies behind it, and especially because they've been selling it to customers and still haven't delivered it, it's tough to make the case that it isn't fraud.
1. See the map on this page: https://www.ford.com/technology/bluecruise/
It seems like you're trying to make a point for Tesla but the arguments you present make Blue Cruise seem like a more carefully planned and safer technology, lol.
The useful metric is deaths per distance traveled regardless of whether automation is on or not. Otherwise you can Simpson's Paradox yourself into any conclusion.
But as a sibling comment pointed out it’s limited for a reason. It’s carefully locked to areas Ford has mapped and verified and believes the software/hardware is capable of performing safely. It will disengage for anything more complicated.
Tesla’s “you can run it almost anywhere, good luck” attitude could easily help explain a large chunk of the discrepancy. The Ford won’t engage where it’s unlikely to work while AP very well might.