Tesla Owners Say Autopilot Makes Them Feel Safer (bloomberg.com) 135
"Bloomberg has conducted a survey of Tesla Model 3 owners," writes Slashdot reader Thelasko. "Some of the most interesting data are responses to questions about Autopilot." Here's an excerpt from the report: We asked 5,000 Model 3 owners about their experience with the electric sedan that Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk says will lead the world into a new era of driverless transportation. [...] Six drivers claimed that Autopilot actually contributed to a collision, while nine people in the Bloomberg survey went so far as to credit the system with saving their lives. Hundreds of owners recalled dangerous behaviors, such as phantom braking, veering or failing to stop for a road hazard. But even those who reported shortcomings gave Autopilot high overall ratings. More than 90% of owners said driving with Autopilot makes them safer -- including most of the respondents who simultaneously faulted the software for creating dangerous situations. Bloomberg also asked Model 3 owners about the quality and reliability of their vehicles, as well as the service and charging.
Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:2, Informative)
While it's nice to feel safe, what really matters is the hard data. Since this article does nothing to even analyze real data, this story is a pointless.
Re:Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Feelings do matter in this case. If they feel safe they may be paying less attention and trusting the system too much, which increases the chances of an accident.
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...or using it in driving conditions where it really isn't appropriate.
Still, it you've got a bunch of screaming kids in the back it allows you to take your eyes off the road while you scream back at them. That has to count for something I guess.
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...or using it in driving conditions where it really isn't appropriate.
Still, it you've got a bunch of screaming kids in the back it allows you to take your eyes off the road while you scream back at them. That has to count for something I guess.
The only car accident my mom ever got into was when her car was at a stop light and got rear-ended. The other person was a mom who was yelling at her kids because they 'started throwing their fresh pizza around inside the car.' We could still hear them yelling and arguing inside of the car, and I was glad that wasn't my life.
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But, they all point out that the low accident counts are impressive to them.
BTW, on a side, the one interesting issue about Tesla drivers, is that wh
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Feelings do matter in this case. If they feel safe they may be paying less attention and trusting the system too much, which increases the chances of an accident.
The first flaw in your argument is the assumption that 'theoretical', 'documentable' facts like yours matter anymore. We are now living in the era of emotionally generated facts. Secondly emotionally generated facts like 'I feel safer therefore I am safer' sell more cars, nothing else matters.
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When I am lost or feeling stressed driving, I turn off my car radio. Not that the radio is making me see less or is the cause of the stress, but because I need more focus during that time, because every extra distraction creates more of a tunnel vision. Looking for the street sign not the pedestrians, Eyes checking in the distance for an intersection not
Re: Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:2)
Conversely If they feel less safe, they may be more stressed while driving, and distracted from their fear, causing them to miss important safety details.
Is that what you do when you feel less safe??
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Feelings work both ways. Such as those feelings from people that ABS doesn't work, and they are better who then attempt to do maneuvers which ultimately result in worse results for avoiding an accident.
Trust the computer, it will only get better. You as a human on the other hand will only get worse.
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And the problem, of course, is "can you trust the data you goggled for on the web". I might be corporate propaganda.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of untrustworthy "reports of fact" out there. This is one of the reasons conspiracy theories are so popular (and it results in more productions of untrustworthy reports). When a report in to the benefit of a financial sponsor of the report one needs to be dubious, especially is they aren't legally liable in case of active fraud.
OTOH, I expect that any reports ou
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While it's nice to feel safe, what really matters is the hard data. Since this article does nothing to even analyze real data, this story is a pointless.
Security theatre at airports makes people feel safer, doesn't mean it is safer.
Re: Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:2)
Yep. I am sure the kids at Broward County High School _felt_ safer with a Sheriff Depute assigned to the campus. Until that fateful day when he abandoned his sworn oath to protect, while cowering outside. Normally that would have been enough to greatly reduce the tragedy.
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Re:Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:4, Insightful)
What is worse is when the data shows something counter intuitive is in play. So the person/group that made the initial intuitive decision feels likes they are on the spot for making a bad decision.
The data doesn't make such value calls, it is just pointing out the trend and effect.
The groups who really understand data, are often unhappy with the simple answer and ask for more numbers to explain it. And when a something counter intuitive is found, the group who gets data is actually excited to see data showing something beyond what they emotionally thought.
If people don't do anything with hard data, you can probably get better results knowing how people feel.
Back during the 1970's with the Gas Crunch people got small cars. They felt unsafe in them, even though they had technology such as crumple zones and better safety belts that actually made the cars safer than their larger counterparts where if there was an accident the car frame would be fine, but you would be head first in the solid oak dashboard or the windshield.
This feeling of being unsafe is the reason why still today. Soccer Moms buy large Minivans then SUVs not because they are better for the family, but because they feel safer driving them.
Feelings change peoples minds, data doesn't
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Back during the 1970's with the Gas Crunch people got small cars. They felt unsafe in them, even though they had technology such as crumple zones and better safety belts that actually made the cars safer than their larger counterparts
But a large car with those features is safer still. Modern large cars, like all cars, do have those features.
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Re:Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read through the case reports, almost none of the 13% of people who said that Autopilot had caused a dangerous situation (generally phantom braking - e.g. false alarm) had ever actually gotten into an accident because of it. But a sizable minority of the 28% who said it had saved them from one were fully convinced that their vehicle would have gotten in an accident if not for an emergency maneuver by Autopilot - some who felt that the accident would likely have been fatal.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people will always hold perfect up as the enemy of good.
BTW, I strongly recommend reading through all of the Bloomberg survey sections - they collected a ton of really fascinating data. Of particular interest was that defects at delivery is down to an all-time low of 35 per 100 vehicles, vs. JD Power's industry average of 91 per 100 (although JD Power's defines it as deliveries found in the first 90 days while Bloomberg's is issues in the first 30 days... but generally if you find something in the first 90 days, it'll have been found in the first 30. Issues found were generally trivial, usually paint chips, trim alignment, etc, and were fixed very quickly on average. Also interesting how repair part delivery times have halved and are now right about the industry average for part times (though accident repair times are still slightly above average - the past three months being 14, 14 and 17 days for repairs, respectively, while the industry average is 12). 14% of repairs are now done through Tesla-owned body shops.
Service complaints have gone up recently, mainly in Europe, but are still a solid minority, with only a fifth of people unhappy with service. In the further breakdown, it becomes clear that it's mainly communications that people marked negatively. The mobile service offerings are almost universally loved, scoring top marks from almost everyone.
Overall vehicle satisfaction is off-the-charts high. The highest-ranked subcategory is performance and handling, at 99,6% satisfaction. The lowest-ranked subcategory is voice commands.
One thing I found interesting in the charging section was that not only was charging in general ranked as (much) more convenient than gas stations, but that Supercharger stations (e.g. people on long trips) were ranked as more convenient than gas stations as well.
Better than humans, not perfect (Score:2)
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people will always hold perfect up as the enemy of good.
The question isn't whether it is perfect it is whether it is better than a human driver. The problem with that is twofold: firstly there are a range of driving skills and it is going to be hard to know whether it is better than you and, secondly, we tend to overestimate our own driving skills. The result is that while it does not have to be perfect it probably is going to need objective evidence showing that it is better than practically all human drivers. In the absence of that people are probably always
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FWIW, it's definitely a better driver than I am. I've got problems seeing things at a distance, and I don't adapt quickly to changing levels of brightness.
But it's still got to be good enough to drive without a licensed driver in the car before I'll consider springing for one.
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Re:Feelings are irrelevant. (Score:5, Informative)
Why would that apply only to Tesla buyers and not buyers of other brands as well?
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Why would that apply only to Tesla buyers and not buyers of other brands as well?
Asking a similar question, how much of the benefit of Autopilot comes from run-of-the-mill ADAS and how much is beyond-ADAS? For example, did automatic emergency braking, which is fairly widespread for new cars, account for most of the benefit? Throw in adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, and road departure mitigation for the rest of the common ADAS features. Outside of those ADAS features, what benefit did Autopilot provide?
Tesla cars with their multiple cameras and more sophisticated software al
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Why would that apply only to Tesla buyers and not buyers of other brands as well?
It does.
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That will give more of a bias answer.
Surprisingly owners of products actually can give a fair assessment of their products especially if they are not cornered into comparing it against something else.
If you go to solid Apple Web Sites, you see people complaining about every little fault in their Apple product. A tiny scratch, pain/plastic discoloration, a feature
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The survey participants were self-selected in that they had already chosen to be Tesla owners, and car owners are notorious for glossing over their cars' faults.
That may be true, but it's important to note what the study is actually reporting. Not that autopilot actually saved them from horrible accidents -- a survey of owners can't prove or disprove that either way. No, it's reporting that that the owners claim they "feel safer." The reality of the situation doesn't matter, what the study shows is how it's affecting perception.
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yeah, Instead, they should have chosen ppl who have never driven a tesla to say how they are doing.
No, instead they could let people who do not own a Tesla borrow one for a few days. Alternatively they could dismiss this shit as meaningless.
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Behold the most bullshit reason to dismiss survey results ever seen.
Apparently you think they should survey people who don't own a Tesla about their satisfaction with the various aspects of owning a Tesla. That's a fucking idiotic take on this, but here you are making it.
How TF is this modded 0 offtopic? He's 100% correct. You don't poll people who don't own a car about how much they are satisfied with said car. You MUST poll owners.
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You know, as much as you like to misrepresent what I wrote, it might serve your purposes better if you don't include links that let people read what I actually wrote:
Facebook Ad (Score:3)
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Exactly. Regardless of what the data says (and it may be that autopilot is safer), this isn't about "feeling safer while you drive." This is about, "feeling safe enough to f**k around while you drive." More succinctly, it's about not having to drive at all.
safety data (Score:5, Informative)
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Thank you, assuming the data is correct, that's valuable information.
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Re: safety data (Score:2)
The biggest reason people drive while inebriated is not wanting to leave their car. Autonomous drivers, once perfected, will massively curb the accidents from alcohol. You might even see court mandated rulings to own one as a 1st offense consequence.
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Yeah! Move those goalposts!
Who cares about hard data that shows a decrease in accidents when we can find ways to nitpick at it, dismiss it and keep the current system that kills 37,000 injures 2.3 million per year just in the US.
I especially like the way you end with randomly mentioning that you've "never seen someone make a study of what even what percentage of drivers are responsible for 50% of the accidents" because ... damn. Not only is it incoherent, it ignores the fac that insurance companies and th
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Re:safety data (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except that long freeway drives are also where you want to have Autopilot, because of the rather humdrum nature of the driving (constant speed, pretty straight roads, etc). Puts a lot of people to sleep so having Autopilot around could keep accidents
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Except that long freeway drives are also where you want to have Autopilot, because of the rather humdrum nature of the driving
You sound confused. You start with the word "except" but are in fact agreeing with the OP, as I do. If I used Autopilot it would be on long tedious motorway/freeway stretches where the accident rate is low anyway. I'd be less inclined to use it on a short suburban hop where the accident rate is much higher. As for using it in traffic jams, you generally get minor shunts in those, not fatalities, as they happens at 20mph.
Whatever : Tesla's statistics are useless without being related to the types of ro
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Misleading figures, because Autopilot is only supposed to be used on highways that are much safer per mile than other types of road anyway. Additionally since Teslas are quite expensive owners tend to come from higher socioeconomic classes who experience fewer accidents anyway.
Tesla has been called out on this BS before but keep pushing it. Their drive attention detection system allows people to sleep at the wheel, but they don't release any data on how often that happens because they don't even know.
Re:safety data (Score:5, Informative)
The most popular place to use Autopilot is stop-and-go traffic. Accidents in stop-and-go traffic are very much commonplace.
3-year 12k mi $0-down lease rates (which take into account TCO) are only $126 more expensive for a Model 3 SR+ than a base Accord - a difference made up for a typical river by gas and maintenance savings alone. A longer-term perspective would favour the Tesla even more.
Tesla's stats contain the difference between Teslas using and not using AP, so it's the same vehicle.
I don't know what you call "pushing" - I see no "pushing" from Tesla on the publications. They were asked during an earnings call to publish regular AP statistics, and thus, they do so.
As a general rule, if you find someone literally asleep at the wheel, they've used a defeat device on their steering wheel. There's a number of different "guides" out there on how to make them, because humans suck. :P
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The most popular place to use Autopilot is stop-and-go traffic. Accidents in stop-and-go traffic are very much commonplace.
Do you have some data that shows that?
As a general rule, if you find someone literally asleep at the wheel, they've used a defeat device on their steering wheel.
In the many videos on YouTube it appears that most of them just rest one hand on the wheel while sleeping.
Re:safety data (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, I'm an Apple hater. I admit it's mostly irrational I just can't stand them, but I will concede if cornered that most of their products are pretty well designed and high quality. But I despise them. You are a Tesla hater. At least admit it's an irrational hatred instead of labeling everyone shills or fanboys.
Automatic driving is coming. It's a ways off but the progress has been pretty good and the bar isn't that high to be "better than a human". But the naysayers always seem to forget that part in favor of "OMG an accident on autopilot shut it down stupid tesla!!!!".
I don't know if Tesla is going to succeed as a company longterm or not, but they will definitely have a place in history for electric car innovation.
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I don't hate Tesla. Would have bought one if they made a suitable model.
Because I am interested in them I made sure to find out what they are really like, and it's not what they claim. They are good cars, just not in the way they say they are.
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>I don't hate Tesla. Would have bought one if they made a suitable model.
I don't hate Tesla either. I did order one. Still waiting.
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As a general rule, if you find someone literally asleep at the wheel, they've used a defeat device on their steering wheel. There's a number of different "guides" out there on how to make them, because humans suck. :P
People don’t suck. Using steering wheel torque as a measurement of attention sucks. It constantly nags you to keep your hands on the wheel if they are there, thus forcing you to either drive one-handed or use a defeat device to make the torque uneven.
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So people who can afford a 35000$ Tesla...
There is no such thing as a $35k Tesla. Cheapest model 3 is $39.5k. I wish Tesla fanboys would realize that Elon's $35k car was never going to happen, but since he uttered the phrase '$35k Tesla!', they think it must exist.
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There is no such thing as a $35k Tesla.
I guess it depends on whether you want to deduct tax credits from the purchase price.
Though that's what you can get NOW, but that may not be in the future, since some of those tax credits will be expiring soon.
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I'm a little confused at how having safety features active (but autopilot off) increased the rate of accidents vs. autopilot engaged. Wouldn't autopilot use the EXACT same safety features to avoid accidents?
For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 1.82 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 498,000 miles. "
This number also seems weird. A Tesla with NO safety features active is essentially any other car on the road. In fact, the Tesla should be WORSE than all other cars since there are many non-tesla cars on the road with safety features turned on. What causes the Tesla to have 1/3 the accidents?
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What causes the Tesla to have 1/3 the accidents?
Hazarding a guess, better acceleration, deceleration, better handling, better traction control and a very low center of gravity.
In fact, the Tesla should be WORSE than all other cars since there are many non-tesla cars on the road with safety features turned on.
And there are many non-Tesla cars on the road with effectively zero safety features.
I've got a 2005 Toyota with no ABS, no traction control, no backup camera, no automated braking, FFS it doesn't even have tire pressure sensors. I see lots of older Jeeps and pickups around which I'm sure are in the same situation. Hell, I saw a Geo Tracker the other day flashing some sweet 1980s c
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Hazarding a guess, better acceleration, deceleration, better handling, better traction control and a very low center of gravity.
More likely, we are comparing all drivers (young inexperienced, old/shouldn't be driving) with middle aged Tesla owners.
And there are many non-Tesla cars on the road with effectively zero safety features.
But ALL of the Telsas in this data set (safety features off) have zero safety features.
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What causes the Tesla to have 1/3 the accidents?
Hazarding a guess, better acceleration, deceleration, better handling, better traction control and a very low center of gravity.
Guess is wrong. It is rare for a modern saloon car to turn over, and all cars have good enough brakes that the only limiting factor is the tyres. Porsches have excellent handling and low CG but insurance companies don't note them as safer.
So safe ... (Score:3)
Re:So safe ... (Score:4, Funny)
... many sleep like babies -- while driving.
This reminds me of a joke I heard...
I wish to someday die from old age peacefully as I sleep, like my grandpa did. Not crying and screaming like the people in the car with him.
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This reminds me of a joke I heard...
I wish to someday die from old age peacefully as I sleep, like my grandpa did. Not crying and screaming like his passengers.
FTFY
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A decision they actively made while they were awake to disable the safety system which prevents them doing just that. Not one person has accidentally fallen asleep while their Tesla kept driving.
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Non-Telsa distance sensing cruise control (Score:2)
I have a Subaru with EyeSight. While it's not "autopilot", IMHO, it does seem safer in some ways than just regular driving because you're less focused on maintaining a reasonable following distance. Let the car do that while you steer and pay attention to other driving details.
Re:Non-Telsa distance sensing cruise control (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a Subaru with EyeSight. While it's not "autopilot", IMHO, it does seem safer in some ways than just regular driving because you're less focused on maintaining a reasonable following distance. Let the car do that while you steer and pay attention to other driving details.
The thing about reasonable following distance is that it's every bit as dangerous as tailgating. There is always some idiot who sees that gap between you and the car in front of you as an invitation to cram his own car in there without signalling or any other form of warning, sort of like a pig pushing aside and trampling down everything in its path as it rushes the feeding troth.
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Still the automatic system would react quicker to that, making it safer yet again.
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Automatic cruise does not do anything when a car squeezes in ahead of you dangerously. The reasoning is a brake check to open space will be a greater accident risk. So most systems just back off the accelerator and gradually open up distance while maintaining a longer time in danger than most drivers.
There are no absolutes in safety, only relative considerations. Maintaining a safe distance maximizes safety. And it's pure speculation on your part that the automatic systems respond slower than people. You are also ignoring that automatic systems perform the same action repeatably, while people only respond in correlation to how much attention they are paying to the surrounding traffic and/or how awake they are.
Further the systems are quite dumb and will stop for cars exiting the freeway, despite being well off to the side, or in the process of turning with no oncoming traffic.
Not an issue with my Subaru adaptive CC, I don't know whose system you are talking about. S
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Glad I can tailgate people and make the world a better place today, the forward driver being upset is simply a nice bonus. Been doing it 30 years and only had a guy brake check me once, locked up his tires and everything. I got back on his ass even tighter than before and he didn't have the balls to try to cause an accident again.
And that shows us what sort of person you are.
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People do that even when there isn't enough space, so I don't really buy that argument.
If you don’t yield, hit the horn and there is insufficient space they are too cowardly to ram you.
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The thing about reasonable following distance is that it's every bit as dangerous as tailgating. There is always some idiot who sees that gap between you and the car in front of you as an invitation to cram his own car in there without signalling or any other form of warning
Yeah .. and you just slow down and increase the gap between you and the new car ahead of you. Been doing that since before adaptive cruise control was a thing.
Saying that safe distance driving is dangerous because people will fill the hole is stupid argument. Safe driving distance minimizes the possibility of you running into the car ahead and maximizes your overall safety.. But you can't stop other people doing stupid shit on the road. And extrapolating your answer you want to eliminate safe driving di
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The thing about reasonable following distance is that it's every bit as dangerous as tailgating. There is always some idiot who sees that gap between you and the car in front of you as an invitation to cram his own car in there without signalling or any other form of warning
Yeah .. and you just slow down and increase the gap between you and the new car ahead of you. Been doing that since before adaptive cruise control was a thing.
Saying that safe distance driving is dangerous because people will fill the hole is stupid argument. Safe driving distance minimizes the possibility of you running into the car ahead and maximizes your overall safety.. But you can't stop other people doing stupid shit on the road. And extrapolating your answer you want to eliminate safe driving distance just to deny the random idiot the ability to cut in front of you. Which makes *you* the idiot and maximizes your chances of having a rear end collision and reduces your overall safety.
So you read the words ‘no warning’ and ‘pig to the trough’ and interpreted that to mean ‘signalled in good time to give you plenty of time to react and then slowly and courteously changed lanes’ ??
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The thing about reasonable following distance is that it's every bit as dangerous as tailgating. There is always some idiot who sees that gap between you and the car in front of you as an invitation to cram his own car in there without signalling or any other form of warning, sort of like a pig pushing aside and trampling down everything in its path as it rushes the feeding troth.
What a strange comment. You just said that because someone left a safe following distance someone merged in (a very safe manoeuvre thanks to the large following distance).
Arseholes are arseholes. The safe way to combat an arsehole is not to drive like one yourself, and giving them the space to wave their dick around is the single safest thing you can do on the road as the alternative is usually that you get cut off.
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I have a Subaru with EyeSight. While it's not "autopilot", IMHO, it does seem safer in some ways than just regular driving because you're less focused on maintaining a reasonable following distance. Let the car do that while you steer and pay attention to other driving details.
I just bought a 2020 Forester. It's EyeSight has the adaptive cruise control but it also has active lane centering technology. I have tested this by driving down the freeway with my hands off the wheel while the car maintains a safe distance from the car ahead of me and keeps me safely centered in the lane. This may not be Tesla AP level of automation, but it does a pretty good impression of it. The car only beeps at me if it doesn't feel my hands on the wheel every 30 seconds or so.
I have to admit that
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The ping-pong thing is "lane keeping assist" -- my 2019 Ascent only has that, which IMHO is not really that useful except on super long distance highway driving, and it takes some getting used to as you kind of fight it until you realize what its doing.
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I *wish* my 2019 Ascent had lane centering, but it only has lane keep assist which is way less useful. It's prone to ping-ponging if you're too light on the steering, but if you're too heavy on the steering you feel like you're fighting the car a bit as it will subtly correct steering a bit too frequently.
What I don't get is how a car can have lane keep assist but not lane centering. AFAICT, it's the same technology -- you have to be able to sense the lane markers and the car's position relative to the la
Now sees cones... (Score:2)
The recent update now show cones on the display. I find myself looking for cones on the road to see if the car identifies the cones on the display which it does do successfully. Autopilot should now be able to navigate contraflow roadworks without ploughing through the cones!
Also, the update provided 1 pedal driving whereby fully releasing the accelerator pedal causes the car to slow down using regenerative braking and under 5mph'ish, fully stops by applying brakes and keeps the car in a "hold" (like "park"
It's Useful (Score:5, Informative)
To me, AP is the marriage of Adaptive cruise control (ACC) and Lane Assist (LA) allowing the car to keep itself centered in the lane. To keep it going, you either have to maintain some kind of tension on the wheel or be ready to add tension when prompted or press/roll one of the steering wheel buttons when prompted.
AP just makes those long haul miles go by much easier than with old school cruise control or any combo of ACC and LA in modern ICE (internal combustion engine) cars.
AP has its flaws though. On roads where the right lane has a traffic ramp merging onto it, if the solid painted right line disappears for the merge lane, AP suddenly doesn't see a right line to center with. At first it is fine, until it sees the right line of the merge lane slowly creep in from the side, then AP tries to center the car with that right line, making the car creep into the merge region, only to wiggle back to the standard lane as the merge lane ends. The car's movement probably looks like distracted driving to a motorist observing my car. If a merge lane has a dashed line present that still delineates the standard lane, AP works fine. You could just cruise in the left lane (or middle, where available) but many states have laws about using the left lane to cruise, versus a quick pass.
AP is a useful tool, but it's not meant to replace a human being being actively present on the drive. It's definitely safer than old school cruise control, and a more enjoyable marriage of ACC and LA, but not a replacement for paying attention.
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This is playfully known as the 'Tesla Asshole Maneuver'. The "must stay in the center!" behavior when a right hand exit lane joins up makes it look like the driver is one of those people who dodge over right to protect their place in a zipper merge and is trying to keep on-ramp users from passing them on the right. When there's enough traffic this particular autopilot action is problematic and causes tension with other drivers, to the point I find myself manually holding straight (thus canceling the autopi
Really... (Score:2)
Completely manual car makes me feel safer (Score:3)
I drive a manual transmission car and I swear it makes me a safer driver, and I feel safer in my car. The reason being, I am forced to pay attention at all times. I cannot have anything in my hands, and I need to pay attention to traffic far ahead to anticipate clutch / shifter action to minimize wear and tear.
All of these nanny controls just make drivers more willing to check the Facepage while driving.
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Agreed 100% (I am also a stick driver although it's becoming more difficult as manufacturers don't generally offer manual versions of their vehicles).
Look, if we wanted to get serious about preventing traffic fatalities right now and not wait for some future AI assisted driver, we could do three things:
- make it harder to get a license (it's a joke right now even with graduated licensing)
- re-test at least every 5 years
- increase the minimum driving age to at least 18
This is all I think about when I read th
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I look forward to a future where silly fallible humans are not in control of their cars. If what you were saying was true then accident rates would have increased over the years. I mean cars are safer than ever so humans should basically not pay attention at all anymore right?
The reality is accident rates go down.
Also what does your transmission have to do with anything? The last hired car I had also had a fully manual transmission. It worked quite well along with adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assis
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The type of transmission for me personally correlates to being a more engaged driver - more in control and paying attention to the surrounding environment. That was my point. I am more engaged and driving gets 100% of my focus.
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Doesn't matter. I was sitting at a left turn lane recently and some lady in front of me, 10 feet at least, put her car in reverse and just backed into me for literally no reason. Fortunately there was no damage but a slight dent on front bumper but she couldn't even explain why she did it, something about working a lot of hours (she didn't appear drunk).
People are dumb. Another asshole rammed me from behind in a school parking lot, said "oh shit my girlfriend's going to kill me, I just totaled our other car
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I expect the ladies' car was an automatic and not a manual stick shift. Automatic cars are more prone to being driven in the wrong direction at fast speed because of people using the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. It is a case of 2 wrongs making it worse. What happens is that they first select the wrong gear D or R and press the accelerator pedal then realise their mistake and try to hit the brake pedal but hit the accelerator pedal by mistake so causing the vehicle to lurch off at high speed
"It put me in daner, but I felt safer" (Score:4, Funny)
An interesting potential takeaway from this line:
"More than 90% of owners said driving with Autopilot makes them safer -- including most of the respondents who simultaneously faulted the software for creating dangerous situations."
Drivers who faulted the autopilot software for creating dangerous situations simultaneously felt that the software kept them safer.
If they were safer, that means that the autopilot either reduced the overall number of dangerous situations they got into or reduced the severity of the individual dangerous situations, compared to when they were driving themselves.
In other words, users were saying "autopilot put me in x number of dangerous situations, but my own driving would have put me in dangerous situations more frequently, or situations that were more dangerous".
Can I get real-time location data for those drivers, so that I can get a Tesla and program the autopilot to never get within 10 miles of them?
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Can I get real-time location data for those drivers, so that I can get a Tesla and program the autopilot to never get within 10 miles of them?
NO no, you're doing it wrong. THAT way you're always on the lookout for them. Bad move.
Use that info and input it into a auto-targeting turret system mounted on your roof. Trunk holds an auto-loading ammo system, and you're set to go. THAT way THEY'RE always on the lookout for YOU, so you have less things to worry about.
Remember, always push the work DOWN to exactly those people that deserve it.
NEWS FLASH: Most people are dumb (Score:2)
Why does the USA worship bullshitters? (Score:2)
What do Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, & Elon Musk all have in common? -- They don't care about the truth. They say whatever they can think of to get what they want regardless of whether there's any truth to it or not. This is the academic definition of bullshit (yes, it's actually a thing).
What else do they have in common? -- Millions of Americans worship them. Unquestioningly.
BTW, according to the OECD PISA survey results, Americans are the second biggest bullshitters in the world, just behind Canadians ht [wordpress.com]
Based on a completely subjective survey... (Score:2)
Re:Suicide mode (Score:5, Informative)
As a result, I am super attentive when AP is engaged. I wonder how much of the extra safety is due to others responding the same way.
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That behavior of the Tesla on autopilot hugging the edge of a road instead of staying in the center as traffic passes is actually a "feature". Not convinced it's a really good one, but it's behavior Tesla coded in to AP not that long ago.
I believe the rationale for it is probably the realization that the AP system isn't capable enough yet to detect something like a metal pipe or a board sticking out further into your lane than the rest of a large truck or van. So "edge case" scenarios of a big truck passi
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How absolutely desperate, miserable, grasping, and pathetic must one be to spam Slashdot?
They don't realise that spamming /. has a very negative efffect, and /.ers will actively avoid buying their shit in future.
But wait - it could be a double bluff and it has been posted by a rival of the company they mention.