Elon the robot?
...the country's Motor Transport Authority has notified Elon's electrics of the decision,...
I knew he was aiming high, but the release of an electric person wasn't on the last press release.
Do Tesla's Dream of Electric Sheep?
Germany's transport ministry has warned Tesla not to call its driver assist system “Autopilot” within the Bundesrepublik. Tabloid Bild am Sontag (Picture on Sunday) says the country's Motor Transport Authority has notified Elon's electrics of the decision, saying the term “autopilot” is misleading. The authority's letter, …
I say that as someone who has written code for commercial aircraft auto-pilots. The testing and certification needed for them is immense.
If Tesla showed that their code had been written to the same standards and gone through the same testing then I might accept the term 'autopilot'. But honestly, until every vehicle is fitted with similar devices AND they talk to each other then there will be crashes and sometimes big ones. You can't code for the falllable humans who are not (yet) controlled by an AP.
It also needs other car makers to adopt the tech and forge a common standard for IVC (inter vehicle Communication). I know that one German Auto maker suggested this in the 1980's. Where is it now eh?
IMHO this whole fracas is what you get when marketing people get ahead of themselves.
Yes, it's pretty good what they've done, but as always, someone then goes and overhypes it and the result is more damage than if they'd just labelled it for what it was, which is driver assistance.
That said, if they spoke a normal language and dealt with reality I guess they would not work in marketing..
What's impressive here is that it has been done 'pre-emptively' before the German launch. Yep, it's only words, but its good to be brought back down, when you get above yourself-too quickly. I've no doubt Elon Musk's intentions are generally good though, unlike Microsoft.
In UK English, 'Autopilot' doesn't have that sense of be all, end all, so its not really an issue. We're naturally sceptical.
Just look at the case of Which? (Consumer Rights) in the UK complaining about Microsoft's Windows 7 - Get Windows 10 nagware. Which? speaking out {finally} 18 months after the launch, a day after Microsoft finally issues patch KB3184143 to remove the Get Windows 10 notification KB3035583, (but note, re-releases update KB2952664 again this month-Oct16).
UK authorities like Trading Standards failing to act against Microsoft for obvious inequalities regards disabled/partially sighted users. I wonder sometimes if they just shuffle virtual paper all day.
Letting Microsoft get off 'scot-free' sends all the wrong signals to other Multinationals regards Disability. Let's not even go there with the borked Windows 7 Updates (now fixed too, 'sort of').
UK authorities like Trading Standards failing to act against Microsoft for obvious inequalities regards disabled/partially sighted users. I wonder sometimes if they just shuffle virtual paper all day.
Nah, it's politics. Microsoft got its claws into UK government to such a depth that one Bill Gates got a knighthood out of it, and there are still plenty contacts left to dampen any outright challengers. Why do you think the mandate to go all ODF hasn't taken hold *at all*?
By the way, Microsoft just got its claws into a new EU nation. Give it 2 years and you'll see which one it is as it'll be in the news for failing government infrastructure as much as the UK was during the Tony Blair years.
" what you get when marketing people get ahead of themselves."
spot on , and bloody irresponsible of them!
Remember that story of the guy in the winnebago who flicked cruise control on and went for a nap?
Well thats all bullshit. Obviously . Dont be so gullible. Its got urban myth written all over it.
However if cars had had "autopilot" buttons for as long as they've had cruise control we'd have seen many many cases if darwin award winning idiocy by now.
This is an example of having to legislate for the lowest common denominator.
Tesla warn people at every opportunity that they need to stay in control of their car, maintain full attention to the road and hold the steering wheel. When they buy the car, when they start the car, when they switch on the assist, when they engage it. And if they still don't pay enough attention it reminds them again.
If, after all that, the driver still thinks they can watch a DVD then changing a couple of works really is not going to make any difference.
"IMHO this whole fracas is what you get when marketing people get ahead of themselves hold of a product."
As so amply demonstrated in this classic MPFC sketch.
The two... no three things certain in this life are Death, taxes, and marketeering excesses.
No, bloody stupid decision. Autopilot is an accurate description. If a pilot in an Aircraft engages autopilot the aircraft will quit happily obey the introductions and fly into anything in the way, another aircraft, mountain, storm, anything at all. Engaging autopilot does not mean the pilot can go to sleep.
@getHandle
What if they're asleep?!
Already addressed...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/12/tesla_autopilot_sw_update/
"The company has also implemented a new approach to drivers who get lazy and rely on the autopilot too much. Warning alerts will be more prominent. And if a driver does not respond to such alerts, the car will not only slow down but will prevent the driver from re-engaging Autopilot until they have come to a full stop."
"The company has also implemented a new approach to drivers who get lazy and rely on the autopilot too much. Warning alerts will be more prominent. And if a driver does not respond to such alerts, the car will not only slow down but will prevent the driver from re-engaging Autopilot until they have come to a full stop."
"The third time in a month Autopilot has to act, the system will lock out the function until the driver obtains an unlock code from the nearest police station"
Not that I'd trust PC Plod anywhere near a computer, but forcing idiots to answer some uncomfortable questions has at least the potential to make them think.
Autopilot
Nicht-autonomes Fahrerassistenzsystem mit beschränktem Entscheidungsspielraum und unter ständiger Aufsicht durch den Fahzeuglenker für den Einsatz auf Bundesautobahnen, Bundesfernstraßen und dafür freigegebenen und entsprechend gekennzeichneten innerörtlichen Verkehrswegen, unter Vorbehalt einer entsprechenden Zusatzqualifikation des Fahrzeuglenkers und der Zustimmung des Trägers der Kfz-Unfall- und Haftpflichtversicherung.
@AC
noted. However, if I'd not omitted the "h", I could possibly have used the excuse of using the correct letters, but not necessarily in the right order...
Morecambe and Wise - Grieg's Piano Concerto
"I'm playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order."
(Looks like Aunty Beeb has blocked the youtube clips...)
Definitely not, please; too easily converted into Assist - o - Pilot, which I suspect would be popular in the US.
In the 1950s Cessna aircraft marketed their spring steel undercarriage with a nosewheel instead of tailwheel arrangement as "land-o-matic". Interestingly, people did not expect the aircraft to land without any pilot control inputs.
Spoken like a true German!! However I suggest you step outside for a moment and then look back through the windows and you will see what the rest of the world is looking at :-/
Perhaps you were thinking of all those flyers Merkel has been handing out entitled "GO TO GERMANY!!"
Actually for the record I'm an Aussie. And having lived in 8 different nations across Asia, Europe and the Middle East (minimum of 6 months each), I can hands down say Germany is the best nation I've lived in (including Aus!), and the only one that does a damn thing to protect individual rights.
I also dont have any problem with refugees coming here. Since the German government weren't willing to intervene militarily in Syria, it's only right that they try to help the people affected by it.
Strongest economy in Europe, strong industry, great people with a great ethic. I'm happy as punch to be living here. Oh and your comment "spoken like a true German" - as a rule, German's dont brag about how great their country is, they're a particularly modest people. Unlike others I can think of...
Germans have nothing to brag about...
Germany is not even a country... the BRD LLC controls the area of Germany under Admiralty law and sends its profits to the USA and UK. Afaik, Russia and France bowed out, but Obama just recently said that Germany will never be a country again. They never got a peace contract either.
Furthermore, the gullible Germans have failed to oust or even *notice* globalist stooge Merkel, who will run any and all errands asked of her by her true masters: International banksters and corporate interests.
Merkel's hands are permanently frozen in a Freemason hand sign. She might be able to regain normal use of her hands with the help of surgery, but all hope is lost for the language center in her brain. No actual meaning will issue forth from her lips. Without the presence of MK-Ultra facilities in Germany the very existence of Merkel would have to be ruled out.
Lastly, the media is more tightly controlled than ever before, including the dark ages before the invention of the printing press.
I also dont have any problem with refugees coming here.
Well I am going to assume that you are male then as you don't seem to be worried about getting sexually molested by any of Merkel's "guests". Also economic migrants (making up a large part of the influx) are NOT refugees!!
Germany actually has the potential to be great but frankly the whole VW scandal just caps off how it simply failed to make it happen. However as I have never been "down under" I will bow to your knowledge that Australia is a worse place to live than Germany ;-)
This makes absolutely no sense to me as the very term "autopilot" comes from aviation, where it is a device that holds the heading and possibly the altitude of an aircraft constant. It is not used to mean a device that is capable of monitoring air traffic or other hazards such as terrain or weather. When a plane is flying on autopilot the actual pilot is still responsible to all of these things. It seems that the problem is not the word, but the fact that people think it is something it isn't. I believe that Elon deliberately chose the term because it emphasised the fact that it was NOT a self-driving system, but something similar to the aviation device of the same name.
Excellent. I was thinking more along the lines of looking like a Windows 10 malware infected dashboard, with switches changing of their own fruition, each time I start the car or while driving for that matter (in the same way the Windows 10 Start Menu is never the same two days running, or things you remove/turn off - come back on).
You really can't distinguish the Windows 10 1607 Start Menu from Malware anymore, it looks, acts, operates like Malware, for all intents and purposes it 'is' Malware.
Sound like a paranoid one! But unfortunately the Germans tested and found out that the assist-o-pilot doesn't look far enough ( Außerdem blicken die Sensoren, die die Nebenspur vor einem Überholvorgang prüfen, demnach nur 40 Meter nach hinten. ). When the guy from is about to pass you with 200 Km/h do you think the car will react fast enough to avoid a deadly crash?
But unfortunately the Germans tested and found out that the assist-o-pilot doesn't look far enough
Yes, 40m is about 400m short of what you need to scan behind you as a good driver on German roads, more if you go slow, and you need to map about 1km ahead of you as well. It's more about scanning for what could potentially become a hazard, like Dutch people with caravans, and planning ahead so you maintain a good margin of safety.
To be honest, I can't see a computer doing that yet. It's great at catching fast incidents at low speed like wayward pedestrians, but as speed goes up, your range of observation has to go with it. I'm actually rather impressed it all works as good as it does at the moment.
Dear Mr. Musk
That's not quite how real engineering is done, particularly in respect of life critical systems.
You design, you prototype, you test, you modify, you test, you adjust, you test, you refine, YOU TEST, YOU TEST, YOU TEST, you approve, you release.
Otherwise you have to include in your terms and conditions a clear statement of your assumption that your customers are also your crash test dummies.