Reply to post: Re: I Can't Stop Myself

Re: I Can't Stop Myself

Not sure what "full blown" autopilot is? Autopilot is steering within lane and traffic aware cruise control. DO you mean Enhanced autopilot which does lane changes and autoparking?

"How will it know the events are occurring if they're out of sight? The various sensors used by "autopilot" are all still reliant on having line of sight to whatever it is they're being tasked to detect."

Because radio waves can bounce off many surfaces (specifically the road). Cameras and your eyes are generally viewing what is directly ahead and light reflections rarely have any bearing on that. SO the Radar can detect two cars ahead.

"whenever I dabble with using cruise control on my cars"

There is different quality and usability of cruise control. I've use three versions, like you I've found a couple of them not very good. You may well find that a more advanced system makes driving easier and more relaxing - it stops mental fatigue and allows you to remain more alert when needed. You may not, but many do.

"With *heavy* emphasis on "within its own capabilities"."

No, completely normal emphasis on its own capabilities. It has a strong set of capabilities but it is well known by Tesla and all owners of their cars that the vehicles are fully self driving and require human attention. Hence the combination of a human and the car makes the system much safer.

"Yep, it seems to be pretty good at that..."

See you've fallen for the trap. By having a Tesla accident published every time it happens (btw many were later shown not to be due to autopilot) you believe that is the norm and they are 'good at that'. However over 2 billion miles driven on autopilot and you've probably read about every crash they've ever had. It is actually pretty impressive, and you could conclude that the likelyhood of it getting it wrong over that mileage is extremely low? In fact pretty much every one you hear about is a stationary object on the road which was undetected - this is a none area where it may fall short (in very many cases it will be detected) but every car with AEB has a similar problem. And human drivers also miss stationary objects in the road all the time, often crashing into emergency service vehicles or their workers.

Many of you are 'deeply troubled' by a name and assume that because of that name it means that the drivers of the cars are likely to believe the car can be left to drive itself is quite a leap. I doubt there is any Tesla owner who does not realise it can' drive itself without supervision, it won't even let you. But used correctly it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't one of the safest cars on the road.