Google gets a lot of grief for their self-driving program, but Tesla has already had one death associated with making their owners beta testers, and they get a complete pass on it.
Google gets a lot of grief for their self-driving program, but Tesla has already had one death associated with making their owners beta testers, and they get a complete pass on it.
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They aren’t getting a pass, and statistically the accident and fatality rate is no higher than regular cars.
Tesla warns its users to remain alert at all times so as to take over control from the "autopilot" in emergency situations. The real problem is that people put too much faith in the automatic systems that do work most of the time, and refuse to stay alert for the cases when they don't.
This video shows a Tesla on autopilot crashing into a disabled vehicle. The car directly ahead of the Tesla driven by an alert driver easily avoids the problem.
They’re not getting a pass, the drivers failed. The autopilot system is NOT a replacement for the driver. It’s basically cruise control with with some lane assistance, you’re still supposed to be paying attention. They aren’t beta testers, they’re people who made bad assumptions about the feature and didn’t bother to read the manual.