[ocdtrekkie]

Yeah, I don't understand why Tesla hasn't simply been ordered to stop calling these features Autopilot or FSD, as both are misleading, and explicitly suggest more capability than they have, causing numerous deaths and accidents.

Oh, and anyone who paid extra for these features should be given a refund, as those features were falsely advertised.

[gostsamo]

It was ordered to stop in Germany.

[yreg]

How is autopilot misleading? Autopilot describes the feature well - assisting driver with the operation of the vehicle, some of the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

[sdflhasjd]

I don't think the average person really understands what autopilot (as in aviation/marine) actually is and what it can and can't do.

[fastball]

Well that is literally where the term comes from and it hasn't really been used in any other context until Tesla's usage, so not really sure where the average person's confusion is coming from.

My point is: I don't think this is true. But if you have a survey which indicates that a broad swath of the population believes Teslas with Autopilot don't need any human intervention or shouldn't have someone in the driver's seat I'd love to see it.

Literally dozens of people in this thread are saying "this is what the average person believes" when none of them believe it themselves. Where are ya'll getting this insight into the average person's thought processes?

[ocdtrekkie]

I mean, it's worth noting that in most aviation and marine scenarios, collision is relatively unlikely. Leaving a plane on autopilot to go in a straight line for a while is unlikely to be dangerous, but it would be very dangerous in a car.

[NateEag]

Because even if that's what "autopilot" technically means, it's not how it's used idiomatically by laypeople.

Most people hear "autopilot" and think "set it and forget it".

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

It's not how the public perceives it.

[fastball]

Why not? What led the public astray?

[NateEag]

Does that matter?

If that is the general perception, how it got that way doesn't change what people think the word means, or what they'll hear when Tesla names a feature Autopilot.

[fastball]

I'm questioning this oft-cited version of reality. I don't know a single person that thinks autopilot means pilots don't need to be in airplanes, and consequently that autopilot means you don't need drivers in the driver's seat.

Of course people recognize that they can get around Tesla's precautions and have nobody in the driver's seat, just like pilots could all leave the cockpit while the 737 is in flight and go get wasted at the minibar or whatever. But they don't and neither should drivers, and Tesla isn't suggesting that driver's should – in fact they've put technological precautions in place that airplanes with autopilot don't even use to ensure someone is at the stick.

You can also run over pedestrians with [insert car here], but nobody is suggesting you do it. People doing it anyway is not [insert car manufacturer here]'s fault.

[NateEag]

I think you're arguing against a strawman here.

I'm not saying "people think Tesla wants you to defeat their safety mechanisms and sit in the back seat."

I'm saying "The name implies more autonomy to the average person than the system actually has."

I could be wrong - I certainly don't have statistics to back up my perception of laypeople's usage of the word "autopilot."

It still seems to me like for the average buyer the name is misleading, though.

[macspoofing]

>I don't understand why Tesla hasn't simply been ordered to stop calling these features Autopilot or FSD

They walked back, or qualified a lot of the initial claims and added mitigations to prevent their 'self-driving' systems from being used as such.

>Oh, and anyone who paid extra for these features should be given a refund, as those features were falsely advertised.

There may be some validity to this. Musk/Tesla certainly made explicit claims that existing cars have the hardware to achieve full autonomous driving via a future software patch.

[ocdtrekkie]

> They walked back, or qualified a lot of the initial claims

The product names are fraudulent, there's no walking back when they're still called Autopilot (a term which in all other uses essentially does not require operator attention) and Full Self-Driving (which is definitely not what the feature is).

It's fraud, plain and simple. Until the features are renamed, Tesla continues to commit fraud.

[mavhc]

An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations (for example, monitoring the trajectory, weather and on-board systems)

Autopilots don't stop crashes, or change lanes. So Tesla's Navigate on Autopilot already does more than a standard Autopilot

[ocdtrekkie]

The issue with this comparison is that in scenarios pilots or ship captains use autopilot, collision is extremely improbable compared to that of a car.

[yreg]

Perhaps in the middle of atlantic.

Most laypeople who encounter autopilot do so on small sailboats near the coastline where a collision is extremely likely if you just turn on the autopilot and go chill in the cabin.

[macspoofing]

>It's fraud, plain and simple. Until the features are renamed, Tesla continues to commit fraud.

That's for courts to decide, but I don't think so, at least not to the level of hostility that you seem to hold.

This kind of reasoning is typical online where deductive logic based on strong assumptions made by the posters, is then used to reach equally strong conclusion (in this case, that a marketing term implies outright fraud). The reality is that regulatory, judicial and cultural boundaries have much more slack than you give them credit for. And that's a good thing.

[sidibe]

It's not just the names that are the problem, it's also the fact that they are trying to do a little more than other driver assist systems despite being very unreliable.

IMO there are some features that shouldn't exist until full L4 so that people aren't tempted to let the car do the driving when it can't

[ocdtrekkie]

I am reasonably okay with a driver assist system attempting to do more. But I'd agree they need to be better about both knowing what they can't do well yet, and that they need to be much better about detecting driver presence and attention, so that the car can't be used in manners they don't intend.