Autopilot is a free feature on Teslas, and is a simple lane assist system, akin to cruise control. It is not Full Self Driving.
FSD is an expensive upgrade, and is supposed to do things like stop at lights.
Driver was on autopilot, which explicitly warns you upon activation that it doesn't stop.
It's a badly named and irresponsibly advertised lane assist system.
I recently rented an Audi Q5 and a Toyota Corolla that both had vision-based lane assist and radar distance-keeping systems baked into the cruise control. It's clearly just cruise control, slightly more sophisticated than the hand-operated throttle lock in my dad's restored 1940s antique truck, but just cruise control nonetheless. That's obvious from the engagement mechanism on the steering wheel, from the way it tugs at the power steering when the painted lane lines bend near intersections, from the "Please take control" alert and disengagement when it hasn't felt a sufficiently strong override from your hands on the wheel in 10 seconds... Is that experience anything like the implementation inside a Tesla? If so, I can't imagine why any driver would be confused, if not, that seems pretty negligent on Tesla's behalf.
It's EXACTLY like that in a Tesla. Even when your hands are on the wheel, you still get nagged to tug on it constantly. Autopilot is not a groundbreaking feature at all. It's just like the Audi Q5 (my wife owns one, and I end up driving that all the time as well since my wife has terrible night vision). My wife specifically pointed out (in a critical way) "What's the big deal with Tesla? My car does the same thing." I had to explain to her that most people conflate FSD with Autopilot.
Oh come on. I own two Teslas (a new P100D with the FSD paid for and a new "plaid") and even I'm not this big a fanboy-apologist.
Elon has promised the moon. If it's a "lane assist", call it a "lane assist."
I think the driver is primarily responsible, but Tesla is also culpable.
I've never used the "self-driving" features -- even the smart lane-assist/cruise control --- other than a few minutes on a clear road to try them out. Too scary for me.
I'm not a fan boy. I have endless criticism of Tesla, especially on the service front. And let's not even get into the build quality issues, particularly with the body panels.
I'm a fan boy of truth, reason, logic, and individual responsibility. All of which are in extremely short supply at the LA Times.
On this specific topic, truth is being shaded deliberately to drive clicks. There is an obvious motivation to make people think that a self-driving car killed people, when it was really a dipshit abusing cruise control. It can happen with my wife's Audi, and probably has happened, but without Tesla in the headline, it's not ideal clickbait.
Regarding Elon "promising the moon", I simply don't understand how FSD relates to Autopilot in this case. If you can read, any misunderstanding someone has about Autopilot being FSD is cleared up immediately upon activation. Alert after alert after message flashes on the screen.
I grew up spending a lot of time on boats, and even worked on a crab boat as a teenager. Autopilot on boats is never mistaken for a self-driving feature. It maintains a compass heading, and nobody is dumb enough to think it does anything else. So if the marketing team has purposefully called it autopilot to hype it up, I'm in agreement the name should be changed. BUT, and this is an important BUT, I don't think it would have changed the outcome of this situation. Dipshits have caused accidents abusing cruise control since cruise control came out. The lane assist version has increased the confidence of dipshits to look at their phones while driving, and that's a conversation worth having as to what should be done about it. But that's not specific to one car company.
> I'm a fan boy of truth, reason, logic, and individual responsibility.
So you are a fan boy?
> And let's not even get into the build quality issues, particularly with the body panels.
I think Tesla made a big mistake calling the "Model 3" a Tesla. They should have had a different brand for that to set consumer expectations appropriately (like the "Yearn" or the "Strive")
> when it was really a dipshit abusing cruise control.
I'm not going to call anyone who died in a car accident a "dipshit."
I'm guessing you're trying to be funny with the fanboy comments that add nothing to the conversation. I will choose not to respond to that.
Regarding your moral assertion that a person who dies in a car accident should never be called a bad name:
I absolutely will call them something bad if they died in a car accident that they caused by being negligent and could have potentially killed others.
My father's first wife died in a car accident while he was driving in 1971. They were t-boned by a drunk driver operating a stolen vehicle who ran a red light. He suffered a broken neck and woke up at the age of 21 in a hospital a few days after the accident being told he was now a widower and had to raise his 1-year-old son (my oldest brother) by himself. But that's okay. You wouldn't ever call that drunk driver anything bad right?
Just ask me if I read the article, or state that you don't think I did. I did read it by the way, and my main complaint is with the title being designed to use innuendo to draw clicks. I consider it beneath the dignity of any good publication that claims to be news. The LA Times lost the plot on this a long time ago. As extreme as Larry Elder was (and yes, i think he's extreme and wouldn't vote for him), when they called a man born and raised in Compton "the Black face of White Supremacy" while providing uncritical coverage of his opponent, a wealthy white man born into the Getty fortune, I stopped taking them seriously. I was probably late on the game with that compared to most HN readers. It was embarrassing to see a once-great publication devolve into being completely unaware of the Onion-like absurdity of their headlines.
FYA (just trying to help Dang out here), asking if someone read the article is a violation of the HN rules. I've been guilty of it myself in the past, and Dang corrected me. I try hard to help him out, because he's a good moderator and has a hard job.
Driver was on autopilot, which explicitly warns you upon activation that it doesn't stop.
Clickbait from a once great, now awful newspaper.