Tesla braces for its first trial involving Autopilot fatality::Tesla Inc is set to defend itself for the first time at trial against allegations that failure of its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to death, in what will likely be a major test of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s assertions about the technology.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Isn’t it a glorified cruise control/lane guidance system, rather than an actual automated driving system? So it would be about as safe as those are, rather than being something that you can just leave along to handle its own business, like a robotic vacuum cleaner.

      • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The main issue is that they market it like a fully autonomous system, and made it just good enough that it lulls people into a false sense of security that they don’t need to pay attention, while also having no way to verify they are, unlike other systems from BMW, GM, or Ford.

        Other systems have their capabilities intentionally hampered to insure that you’re not going to feel it’s okay to hop in the passenger seat and let your dog drive.

        They are hands-on driver assists, and so they are generally calibrated in a way that they’ll guide you in the lane, but will drift/sway just a bit if you completely take your hands off the wheel, which is intended to keep you, y’know, actually driving.

        Tesla didn’t want to do that. They wanted to be the “best” system, with zero safety considerations at any step other than what was basically forced upon them by the supplier so they wouldn’t completely back out. The company is so insanely reckless that I feel shame for ever wanting to work for them at one point, until I saw and heard many stories about just how bad they were.

        I got to experience it firsthand too working at a supplier, where production numbers were prioritized over key safety equipment, and while everyone else was willing to suck it up for a couple of bad quarters, they pushed it and I’m sure it’s indirectly resulted in further injuries and potentially deaths because of it.

        • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          hey wanted to be the “best” system, with zero safety considerations at any step other than what was basically forced upon them by the supplier so they wouldn’t completely back out. The company is so insanely reckless that I feel shame for ever wanting to work for them at one point

          What does this remind me of… Oh yeah right, OceanGate

        • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This is an absolutely bald-faced lie. Tesla absolutely does NOT market Autopilot as fully autonomous system. Autopilot is nothing other than lane-centering and adaptive cruise control with emergency braking, and that’s it. There is zero ambiguity about it on the vehicle and in documentation. Plus, it specifically requires the driver to maintain control of the wheel.

          You need to stop, drop, and roll or jump in the nearest pool before your pants burn you to a crisp.

          • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh really? Is that why for years now, on the front page for Autopilot on Tesla’s site, was the infamous “Paint it Black” demo, where in the first 10 seconds it says “The driver only there for legal reasons, the car is driving itself”? What do you think is going to stick in the mind of a potential buyer: that video of the car “driving itself” right on the Tesla website, or the generic 5 line page that you’ll see in basically every single car with a satnav these days saying, “Please operate the car safely”?

            Regardless of how much people like you love to get into the technicalities and differences between Autopilot and Full Self Driving and chime in with “ACKSHUALLY” and insert any number of the same tired responses about how autopilot works on aircraft or what it says in the documentation, it changes nothing about how they’ve shaped the public perception of their system and how people are going to attempt and use it.

            Stop defending their shitty practices. Literally everyone else has figured out how to prevent people from abusing these systems, Tesla won’t even bother, because people like you will step in and defend it every time for some fucking reason, and as a bonus it saves them money.

          • themajesticdodo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Autopilot is nothing other than lane-centering and adaptive cruise control with emergency braking, and that’s it.

            When you put it that way, the term Autopilot does sound really misleading.

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            In have this product named Telephone. I absolutely do NOT market Telephone as a remote long distance voice chat system. Telephone is nothing other than a voice-recording and adaptive voice control with emergency saving features, and that’s it.

          • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They literally named it “autopilot”. Give me a break. You have zero business calling other people dishonest.

          • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Well there have people accusing Tesla of advertising their cars as much more self driving then they are. Specifically Teals has been accused of false advertising because it is what you describe, but they sell it as a self driving car.

      • fat_stig@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It is just a shit load of if then else statements. If the inputs don’t have a corresponding if then it just defaults to doing nothing.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Driving is not safe. These systems could be improved upon, but they’ve also saved numerous lives by preventing accidents from occurring in the first place. The example in the OP happened while this driver was sitting behind the wheel watching a movie. The first example in your article occurred with a driver behind the wheel. If either of them had been driving a 1995 Honda Civic, these accidents would have occurred just the same, but would anyone be demanding that Honda is to blame?

      • pup_atlas@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        No, we would (rightfully so) blame the driver for merging into a semi truck that from my understanding was clearly visible.

      • silvercove@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        but they’ve also saved numerous lives by preventing accidents from occurring in the first place.

        There is no data to make this claim. You’re just making this up.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          Give me a break. You think all these companies are dumping billions of dollars into technology that doesn’t work? You’re making stuff up. Go watch some dashcam videos on YouTube if you want some proof.

          • silvercove@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            Are you kidding me? I never said it will never work. But that does not mean its current state is safe to trust your life.

            • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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              1 year ago

              You did in fact just say that by saying that I was making up the fact that these systems have saved lives. Moving the goalposts to “you can’t trust your life to it” doesn’t make your original argument anymore accurate nor does it reference anything in dispute. Nobody said you should trust your life to cruise control.

              • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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                1 year ago

                Nobody did indeed say you should trust your life to cruise control.

                But Tesla did claim you could trust your life to autopilot because “the car basically drives itself”, which it obviously doesn’t.

                • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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                  1 year ago

                  Tesla didn’t claim that. Musk claimed their early FSD “basically drove itself” in what appears to have been a staged demonstration. This accident and lawsuit are about Autopilot, which is a completely different system.

              • silvercove@lemdro.id
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                1 year ago

                There is no doubt that one day these systems will be so good that they will make transportation much safer. But there is no data that shows that we’re already there.

                • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Actually there is some doubt about that. Completely irrelevant to the present either way though.

                • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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                  1 year ago

                  You mean you’ve done zero research on the topic before injecting your opinions, so you simply haven’t seen any data?

                  https://thedriven.io/2023/04/27/accident-rate-for-tesla-80-lower-than-us-average-with-fsd/

                  New data released in its Impact Report show that Tesla vehicles with Autopilot engaged (mostly highway miles) had just 0.18 accidents per million miles driven, compared to the US vehicle average of 1.53 accidents per million miles.

                  https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/3219570/The-Potential-Benefits-of-LKAS-in-Australia-MUARC-Report-365.pdf

                  A statistically significant 16% reduction in the risk of involvement in all casualty crashes of these types and a 22% reduction estimated for fatal and serious injury crashes was associated with LKA fitment to Australian light vehicle was estimated.

                  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27624313/

                  The analysis showed a positive effect of the LDW/LKA systems in reducing lane departure crashes. The LDW/LKA systems were estimated to reduce head-on and single-vehicle injury crashes on Swedish roads with speed limits between 70 and 120 km/h and with dry or wet road surfaces (i.e., not covered by ice or snow) by 53% with a lower limit of 11% (95% confidence interval [CI]). This reduction corresponded to a reduction of 30% with a lower limit of 6% (95% CI) for all head-on and single-vehicle driver injury crashes (including all speed limits and all road surface conditions).

                  https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/vehicle-safety-features-accidents/

                  ADAS functionalities can change the driving experience. According to research by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, ADAS vehicles showed a 27% reduction in bodily injury claim frequency and a 19% reduction in property damage frequency.

                  • silvercove@lemdro.id
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                    1 year ago

                    We’re not talking about ADAS in general, we’re talking about what Tesla is selling.

                  • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Lol the only relevant link is the first one, which comes from Teslas cherry picked and thoroughly disproven data set.

          • chakan2@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            billions of dollars into technology that doesn’t work?

            Absolutely. Heard of the F22?