Tesla Removes 'Self-driving' From China Website After Beijing Crash (reuters.com) 85
Last week, a Tesla owner in China blamed electric vehicle's "autopilot" feature for a crash. Amid the reports, Tesla quietly removed the term "self-driving" feature from its Chinese website. Reuters report: The Tesla driver crashed earlier this month while on a Beijing commuter highway after the car failed to avoid a vehicle parked on the left side but partially in the roadway, damaging both cars but causing no injuries. It was the first known such crash in China, although it follows a fatal accident in Florida earlier this year that put pressure on auto executives and regulators to tighten rules for automated driving. A check of Tesla's Chinese website on Sunday showed that the word "autopilot" had also been removed. But that term was subsequently reinstated on Monday. "At Tesla we are continuously making improvements, including to translations," a Tesla spokeswoman said in an emailed statement to Reuters when asked about the removal of the terms "autopilot" and "self-driving."
Adds "Self Crashing" (Score:1)
nt
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only works if everyone play by the same rule (Score:2)
In China, traffic signs and regulations are mostly for "reference" only.
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I was in a Chinese district where they honk continuously when they pass other vehicles and when they passed through tunnels. Interesting system... very noisy though.
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The soundwaves expand the air in front and make it easier to drive through. Totally legit.
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Huh?!? (Score:2)
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in other news (Score:5, Funny)
VW to change the definition of emissions compliant on their website, lawsuit averted.
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Get the hell over it. Teslas are NOT goddam self-driving, full stop, end of story. If they advertised self-driving, that was a massive boo-boo in the translation. Autopilot, that's something else altogether; sure, they have an autopilot.
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Yes, they do have a system that controls the trajectory of your vehicle without constant hands-on control by a human operator being required. Even if the operator takes his hands off the controls and stops paying attention.
And unlike an aircraft's autopilot system, the Tesla will usually avoid obstacles as well.
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Autopilot is actually an accurate name for it.
Autopilot was primarily invented for aircraft and even today, autopilot will still happily fly an aircraft into terrain without human interaction if you let it. There have been numerous CFIT fatal crashes of aircraft with over 9000 deaths. Each of these incidences brought more knowledge of how to improve technology to help prevent future occurrences (I expect the same to happen with autonomous vehicle technology so longs as government allows it to exist). Autopi
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If it is not self-driving (automatic) but it provides some assistance, it is assisted driving/piloting, but not automatic piloting (autopilot).
You can also check what autopilot [merriam-webster.com] means even in English - a device for automatically steering ships, aircraft, and spacecraft.
Stop saying autopilot isn't aut
Re:Huh?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
They've since corrected the error in translation to better convey the meaning behind the English "autopilot".
You're referring to the meaning that, to the 95% of the English-speaking population who have never flown an airplane or have any background or knowledge of aviation, means "self-flying", no?
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Just because so many are wrong don't change the meaning of the word.
I disagree. Definitions of words change all the time because a large number of people agree to a new meaning. One example is Decimate [merriam-webster.com]. Originally, this meant to kill 1/10th of a population - from the ancient Roman use of Decimation [wikipedia.org] as a means of punishment of a group at once, such as punishment for desertion. Over time, people at large associated "decimate" with a disaster affecting large groups, and later the assumed meaning shifted to "destroy almost all of something."
And I watched that definition change
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That's interesting. I never looked up that word before but I always assumed in meant to cause a disaster on such a scale that the decimal place is moved a certain number of places. Like only 100 surviving out of 10,000, or 50,000 of 5,000,000,000.
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With autopilot you enter the entire flight plan, and you have the computer land the plan in ILS. Don't assume lack of stuurwiel, wheel or control column is autopilot. Airbus doesn't have a control column, yet the pilot can fly manually by turning knobs.
With autopilot you just program it, and let it run the program, and you don't touch it, unless your pants are going to suddenly go brown.
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Not all aircraft autopilots are that fancy, many aren't that safe for landing, and almost all will cheerfully fly into an obstacle. The technical sense seems correct for Tesla - it's somewhere in the range of things that get called "autopilot". Terrible choice for a marketing term, of course.
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Airbus does have sidesticks that work just like a control column. And we can't program the autopilot to do an entire flight including landing. Autoland requires quite a bit of manual actions (engaging approach mode when close to the airport, selecting flaps and landing gear,...) and we are trained to always be ready to take over when the system malfunctions.
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Autopilot in an airplane means that the plane can pilot itself while you go take a piss. Autopilot in a Tesla means that you will take a piss while the car drives itself.
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That isn't what autopilot [wikipedia.org] in an airplane means [faa.gov] at all. Stop spreading misinformation.
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As others have pointed out, this is completely untrue. I'm a pilot. I have an auto-pilot on my aircraft. It can easily kill me if I allow it. Auto-pilot means to offload tasks from the driver. It still requires oversight at every phase. This is why pilots are still part of cockpits.
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I thought Autopilot didn't mean self-driving?!?
The secret is out, and the Chinese are on to us. It clearly means, automatic piloting. Which refers to the algorithm Netflix uses generates new series. Very confusing I know. I can't even guess what term will we use when we have flying cars.
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The "common meaning" of the word is exactly what I described. Maybe Tesla should educate people more about what the word means (and not make hands-free demos during test drives and in youTube videos), but "most people don't understand the word, therefore you are wrong when you use the word in its correct meaning" is hardly a valid argument. The word means what it means.
Re:Huh?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The function of the Tesla autopilot is exactly like that of autopilots in boats and airplanes, they couldn't have chosen a more accurate term.
Why do folks keep saying this when in airplanes autopilot specifically allows the pilot to take his hands off the controls for extended periods of time, and allow in increases and focus on instrumentation? Neither of those do you want in a car. Tesla expressly says you should NOT take your hands of the controls. There are very clear differences.
Anyhow, I laugh over the argument effort. For Tesla, Autopilot means whatever Tesla markets it as, expressly or preferentially.That includes both the fine print and they hype.
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See, autocorrect needs monitoring too. Go sue whoever made your autocorrect software.
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Then tell Tesla to tell people they must keep their hands on the wheel at all times and keep their attention on the road same as if they didn't have autopilot.
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During an automatic landing, we do have our hands on the controls. Cruise flight, with lots of empty air around us, is obviously a lot less critical.
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Cars don't land, so that isn't relevant, except maybe parking. But at no time in a car, even on an open empty highway, are you allowed to take your hands off with Tesla Autopilot. At least according to Tesla.
How is it different? Only when landing is an aircraft ever supposed to be within miles of something it might run into. Sounds like landing is closer to the environment cars operate in, rather than flying.
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One common definition that would apply to both cars and planes would probably be "the vehicle has to have at least X seconds unobstructed travel path before it, so that it is save to take the hands of the controls" Then that would also somewhat fit missiles and rockets, although in their case the human intervention is mostly confined to an "abort and self destruct" button.
That way a highway scenario could one day become "hands of wheels" territory, for example when there are autonomous vehicle only lanes.
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I don't know about planes, but marine autopilot seems much more sophisticated than Tesla's at high levels of integration.
Dumb systems will simply hold heading to a specific compass bearing. Sightly smarter ones will hold heading to a bearing and maintain a desired speed (and in dumb systems usually only throttle position).
Smarter systems integrated with a chartplotter will pilot an entire trip based on waypoints, maintaining course and speed the entire way with no input. Even smarter systems integrate rad
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Not sure the comparison holds. For one thing, you're not driving the boat in a lane surrounded by other boats, like in a motorway. The marine autopilot is child's play by comparison.
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It doesn't but a lot of people don't realize that.
A commercial airplane has autopilot however they need at least 1 pilot in the cockpit at all times. Autopilot doesn't replace the need of a pilot or a driver for the case of Tesla, but a tool that can deal with a lot of the monotony in driving.
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I'd say most everyone doesn't realize that. If anything, the vast majority of people's only experience with autopilot is in an airplane they've seen in a Hollywood movie flying itself while the pilot goes to the john or uses a stewardess. I don't know why Musk continues to call his system autopilot when it clearly means "adaptive cruise control with lane detection system". Even Cadillac was smart enough to call it "Super Cruise".
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Re: Huh?!? (Score:2)
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Tesla's autopilot exceeds the capabilities of many, perhaps even most, autopilots in use in aviation. The fact that it's not completely hands-off and capable of engaging in witty banter in the voice of William Daniels does not change that fact.
And Hollywood movies? Really? The Hollywood movie I saw the other night claimed that flying DeLoreans and hoverboards are available right now and that the Cubs won the World Series last year. Just because I saw it on TV doesn't make it so.
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but a tool that can deal with a lot of the monotony in driving.
Hold on thar pardner! No no no. Autopilot does not help you deal with the monotony. If anything, it adds to it as it takes over some of the driving task. Maybe you just chose the wrong words to imply making it safer for those whose attention drifts during monotonous driving.
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A commercial plane autopilot is a fundamentally different animal.
In a plane someone has to be in the cockpit. But the majority of the flight is a straight trajectory through largely completely empty space, with nothing at all 10,000 feet in any direction. They can stand up and stretch in the cockpit. A 3-4 second response time is fine. The pilot can read flight manuals, do paperwork, study a map, play cards, stand up and stretch (in the cockpit)... etc. He also has a copilot to hand-off too so he can even
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I thought Autopilot didn't mean self-driving?!?
You've never been to China have you? You'd be amazed what something means once someone translates it into Chinese and then translates it back again.
Just two links ??? (Score:2)
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What about the fatal crash in Southern California [teslarati.com] last monday morning?
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Yeah, I think the number of deaths caused by driver stupidity is far larger than those two deaths that were caused by the autopilot feature.
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Here's one. [teslarati.com]
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People are more scared to fly than to drive, or walk across the street.
The general fear is from a loss of control. The more control a person has the less they are afraid, because they can make decisions about their life. While if you intrust it into technology or someone else. The risk is that other person just will not care as much... Even though the numbers show that they are safer.
The same with many people with cloud computing. You hear about a major outage or problem once a year, however if they wer
You dumb fuck (Score:2)