I understand your opinion completely Harrison, but have to respectfully disagree. The future of cars is, no doubt, coming to be fully autonomous. I’ve found many sources saying that statistically Tesla autopilot is 9 times safer than a human driver. Autopilot engaged cars were involved in one accident for every 4.34 million miles driven. Also, there are absolutely regulations in place meant to prevent the driver from being inattentive while using the feature. For example, the driver is required to have a hand putting pressure on the steering wheel when autopilot is engaged.
The public is obviously going to be extra-critical of this new technology coming about because its new, and quite frankly, a little scary. The concept and use of self driving vehicles seems so futuristic, but really, its already here. Society excepting this is going to take longer than it takes for the technology to develop, and therefore there will be periods of critical reviews, videos such as the one in this article, and much more negative feedback of the car’s abilities. This is all completely justified though, considering the average public has the opportunity to put their lives and the lives of those around them in the hands of technology.
This article labels the man sleeping in his Tesla as ‘dangerous’, but statistically, the self driving car is much better at driving than any human. Maybe one day a sleeping driver will be the norm. We’ll just have to see where society draws the line.
1
I am continually surprised at the sniping Elon Musk receives. Yes, he’s an idiot at times. But, at the same time I believe he is a visionary genius. Starting a car company? A space transport company? Reimagining clean energy systems? These are not minor achievements.
And yet, there are many who’d like to portray him as a high tech snake oil salesman. Certainly he makes missteps. Anyone who achieves anything of note knows that these inevitably accompany progress.
Some of his antics are amusing, the nerdy joking of a genius. The Boring Company, the flamethrower, launching a Tesla into outer space among them.
Henry Ford was also an engineering genius who redefined an industry. His wacky side, if one could call it such, was to publish a nasty, anti Semitic screed at a time when hate was coming to the calamitous boil that would kill millions in WW 2.
The author is getting his panties in a knot over some possibly fake videos of people misusing a novel tech and using that as a springboard for a Luddite rant. The thought of all the drunk and chemically compromised drivers on the road; the sleep-deprived, the geriatrics, the texting, the distracted, the aggressive, is what should really frighten one. That, and the tens of thousands killed on our roads every year.
I am hopeful that by the time my facilities are compromised to the point that driving would be dangerous for me, the technology to safely take me to my destination in a car that’s not a planet killer might exist.
4
Honk! Don't take video!
2
You can't fall asleep with your head tilted back unless you're on your back (that's a lot of yours, and backs!). In the video the driver isn't even close to a horizontal position which would produce a pitched-back head. His head should be leaning forward. This is as we say one magic head!
Living in the middle of Silly Valley gives me maximal exposure to Teslas and their drivers, nowhere can they be more prevalent than here. It's not uncommon to see three or more at once when stopped at a light on the El Camino Real in Palo Alto or Sunnyvale.
I never understood why they Teslas didn't have speedometers, until I figured out that they must actually have them, they just seem to be owned by people who don't use them. At least autopilot would presumably observe the speed limits.
All the time, energy and money being waisted on developing self driving vehicles should be used to develop better forms of public (not private) transportation. If we are to survive climate change the private automobile (self driving or not) will be all but extinct within the next 15-20 years. Elon Musk should fly to outer space and stay there!
1
Auto-driving cars would only be safe if all cars and trucks on the road were also auto-driving. Then they would network with each other to create safe driving in real-time. Any other scenario does not work; no matter how much folks want it. 50 years away minimum.
"What’s fascinating is the way the sci-fi novelty of Autopilot — combined with the deep familiarity of old-fashioned driving — manages to warp our danger-detecting radar."
That is what is "fascinating" to the writer? It seems obvious to me that folks are alarmed when a auto-driving car is on the road.
Lot of opinions on these are given by the people who have no experience with tesla.
I have owned a Tesla model 3. "Navigate on Autopilot" requires me to apply a slight torsional force at the periphery of steering wheel. If that is not done - the car flashes colors on screen and asks you to apply the force - if ignored, this beeps - if ignored - it asks you to start driving because autopilot is being disabled until next stop. This does happen and I have tested it.
I think that all those drivers who are presumably sleeping - have either done modifications to the car or the videos are staged. I can not get my car to drive while I am sleeping.
People who do not own Tesla, need to drive/experience one first before they start commenting.
2
These videos are as alarming and disturbing as seeing the string of 60 Starlink satellites ( with my own eyes) that Space X has been sending up. Elon Musk is changing the world, for better or worse. This is a moment to stop and reflect on these changes and decide if this path of technology is what the world needs.
2
@binowitz , yes, for our insignificant conveniences we"ll have satellites galore, and at the same time stymie a science as old as sight.
1
Put the planet on auto-pilot, it might improve things.
1
We need a robot driving to feel better.
Great, one guy asleep behind the wheel of a smart car being chased by another guy driving a dumb car with one hand on his wheel while shooting a video on his phone while looking out his side window.
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so which is more dangerous, a computer driving a car or a human filming a passing car while driving.
2
We are ceding our abilities to use our faculties in the interest of being entertained and/or coddled by things that keep us focused on ourselves instead of what's around us. Like the wi-fi radar installations that have been quietly installed on every other rooftop: intent on their cell phones, few city dwellers have even noticed, nor contemplated the effect that constant exposure to radioactive-emitting pulsed signals may have on their health, nor the possibility of being controlled by Active Denial - crowd control via the millimeter wave for 5G .
If a person wants to sleep while traveling, he/she should take a train or a bus. There should be no use of a cell phone while driving a vehicle. Get those driver-less cars off the road and work to keep up concentration and mental focus on the moment and the space around you. Do not be fooled by
"alternative reality" or "artificial intelligence. They will lead us further into becoming basket cases of passivity.
1
After playing various sports and activities that require hand/eye co-ordination and physical skill with folks over the last 40 years, I am always amazed out how blithely we accept these same people getting behind the wheel of a car and driving it. So that guy whose reaction time was so slow he swung his racket AFTER the ball was already by him is going to get in a car and drive 65 mph? That lady who always trips like 10 times when negotiating a child's obstacle course is going to put 4 kids in that mini van and drive them home? Is there any other activity where 40k people a year die doing it while we all collectively pretend as if everyone is capable of performing the task safely?
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Having used auto helm on boats for years, I would never let my Tesla Autopilot do the thinking for me. I have tested 'the holding and not holding' the steering wheel on Autopilot - The car screams when you let go. I suspect many of these shots are fake.
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This is what disturbs me about this: "hurtling down a highway under the control of proprietary algorithms beamed on board from Palo Alto". Proprietary algorithms are fine for products that do not affect public safety, but for products that do,algorithms and source code for self-driving vehicles should be available for review by the NTSB.
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Installing autopilot features in cars is a terrible idea. Autopilot features only encourage the “driver” to not pay attention - an action that is never acceptable when they are in a vehicle that has the potential to crash and kill others. It is scary to see the video in the article of the man fast asleep in his Tesla hurtling down the interstate.
It’s only partially the consumers fault though. Tesla knows how tempting it is for a driver to give up their control so they can get a little rest. As a motorist myself, I would love to take the stress out of driving by using autopilot features. Tesla and other car companies need to start developing systems to keep drivers attentive instead of adding features that do the opposite.
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@Harrison Carter
Agree. They should only go as far as to aid the driver in stopping before a hitting a crash in front, or even latching onto a vehicle in the front that gives that permission (only one latch per vehicle), adaptive cruise control, lane change warnings, etc.
The problem I see with autopilot is that drivers will be busy with other tasks, including sleeping, and may accidently kick the car out of autopilot and it will surely be an accident.
Maybe autopilot on certain freeways that are certified for it. Never on the streets.
1
"“Jetsons”-esque smart-home technology turned out to be riddled with glitches and vulnerable to hackers." And cameras on our laptops that can be used to watch us without our knowledge. All the great tech ideas in the world are only as good as the designers who are just people -- are they unable to anticipate every single gap in their software that will soon need a patch? Are they sloppy? In a hurry to meet a deadline? "Don't worry -- we'll patch it later!" We're placing our lives in their hands.
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Tesla drivers are well known in the Bay Area to be awful. My theory is that they're too busy with that big screen in the middle console to pay attention to what they're doing. At least that's my "nice" explanation.
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@Joe
The DID ( driver Info display) on the center stack is one of 2 reasons I didn't get a model 3. No hatch was the 2nd. So I purchased a Chevy Bolt. It's not a Tesla but it works rather well. The DID is right in front, it's quick enough 6.5 sec 0 to 60 MPH. Range is good at 220+ miles and the dealer is 4 miles away.
I do not work for GM or hold GM stock.
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@Joe The first time I saw the rear-view screen on new vehicles, I was dismayed, because I knew some people would rely totally on that than using rearview mirrors and actually looking back. I just kept thinking of a rule drilled into us in driver training, "Always look back while backing." That rule did not change with technology.
2
It will only get worse as more cars will be able to drive themselves. As we build more smart roads, allowing more cars and trucks to drive themselves. Sooner or later the common place sightings of "Oh My Lord, that person is driving that vehicle" Will replace these videos. The Future is here. Just when we all share the road in cars that drive themselves we might start asking why we have cars in the first place.
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@Charles E Owens Jr
Or, cars might start asking why they should have drivers, who get them into road rage incidents, wreck them by driving impaired, or fall asleep at the wheel
5
Unlike the author of the article (and most of the commenters) I have a Tesla, with autopilot. I have little doubt that most, if not all, of these scare videos are fakes. The existing system requires you to put varying pressure on the steering wheel on a continuing basis. It is not physically possible to use a weight or wedge the wheel to allow you not to do this. Oh, and drivers with autopilot have 40 percent LESS accidents than drivers who retain control
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@ianstuart There are a number of ways to defeat the system, at least one a product designed for it.
And about 80% of accidents are prompted by illegal or inattentive driving. So a 40% reduction still leaves the Teslas about 3x as dangerous as a legal, attentive driver. Not good enough.
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"Science never solves a problem without creating ten more."
-- George Bernard Shaw
We would do well to look at the fast-food/slow-food arc, and apply it to everything. These gadgets that some are so enamored of are rapidly destroying essential aspects of being human -- aspects that can't easily be re-acquired, aspects whose loss has an impact we don't fully understand. (For ex., brick-and-mortar stores, which provide a sense of community and more employment.)
Eat your vegetables first (solve the stubborn-but-solvable problem of poverty; meaningfully address climate change), and then you can have dessert.
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A Tesla driver with his car set on autopilot who was not paying any attention whatsoever to his car crashed it on 101 in Mountain View, CA against the dividing barrier where the carpool ramp towards 85 branches off. He died in the resulting fire.
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@Alison Darwinism at work. Unfortunately he and others like him put us in jeopardy as well.
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I know there are some legal and privacy hurdles to overcome but I haven't for the life of me figured out why EVERY car/truck etc is not fitted with a transponder so that self-driving cars could be a reality now and save thousands of lives every year. At the very least this could be activated on highways where there are no pedestrians or bikes.
Most people have already given their location and identities away to corporations anyway...
7
These videos might or might not be "real". However the race for more automation and humans losing more and more grounds to AI is absolutely real and seems inevitable at this point!
1
Uncomfortable truth be told, with the constant now of people texting and driving, that sleeping Tesla is safer than a big chunk of the cars on I-5 in my town. There's so many weaving and aggressive drivers and fender benders during rush hour now its getting ridiculous. Maybe in Mayberry all the drivers are safe and attentive and do a better job in rush hour traffic than a Tesla on autopilot, but not in Seattle, not anymore. And not to mention death dealing semi trucks where they can't even find qualified drivers anymore. No thinking person who values their life should prefer driving next to a big rig in congested I-5 traffic piloted by some random human compared to Tesla autopilot. Tesla autopilot is not perfect, but it is an objective fact that as we sit here today, in freeway traffic, it is better now than a sizable percentage of human drivers.
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@P9ODL Nope, "Mayberry" drivers are in just a big of hurry. Roll-through stops and failing to yield. Heck, our city is 4 miles wide and 6 miles long - why can't people take that extra minute to stop at a stop sign or not run the signals?
2
I wonder how many more accidents are caused by simply human distracted drivers vis-a-vis Tesla Autopilot. My money is on the human error.
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@Paul S It seems like a lot of them don't know how to drive the Tesla or are too distracted by it being so different inside, no gauges, just this large screen in the middle console.
2
It's easy to call the driver an "idiot" for falling asleep at the wheel of an autonomous car. But, frankly, what we're witnessing in these "sleeping" incidents is just human nature.
The problem lies with the design of these autonomous cars and NOT with the drivers. Humans should never be expected to constantly monitor an automated system. That's an impossible task for humans to perform with any reliable consistency. It become even more difficult, once the autonomous system becomes highly reliable (that's like watching paint dry).
Instead, autonomous cars must be designed to monitor the drivers, if they are expected to be awake and paying attention. The autonomous system MUST be designed to watch the driver and prompt him/her, any time attention drifts away. This seems pretty obvious, sorry.
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Peter. Don't like Teslas? Don't buy one. Don't like Ubers? Don't take one. Don't like Amazon? Don't shop there. Leave the rest of us alone.
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Not a hoax. California Highway Patrol arrested someone recently in Palo Alto for drunk driving--they found him passed out in his Tesla, which was driving at 70 miles per hour. They had to get in front of the car and slow down so that the Tesla slowed and stopped behind them. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/30/chp-tesla-driver-suspected-of-dui-may-have-had-autopilot-on/
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@Chris better no crash, then for same drunk crashing, maybe taking someone with him.
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I always sleep best when I'm riding in a car
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@Ladybug And I've always slept best in a C-130 flying between the States and Afghanistan in either direction. I'm still not interested in a third combat tour.
No one cares if you're sleeping while riding. We all care A LOT if you're sleeping while driving, even when the car is on autopilot.
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I am of two minds on autopilot controlled cars.
On one hand I am uneasy when I see a YouTube video of a person in the driver's seat apparently snoozing as the car is being operated by some sort of computer.
On the other on a daily basis I see cars weaving in and out of high speed traffic on the Turnpike, Parkway, Route 78, etc..
At that time the occasionally snoozing driver in a Tesla seems to me to be less of a threat to my safety than the wide awake cowboy behind the wheel of a conventionally operated vehicle.
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Not many people look up from their phones when driving. It's terrifying to witness as a passenger watching out the car window.
8
Tesla should be prohibited from activating a self drive program until they install an un-removable dead man’s switch which requires constant hand pressure to operate.
Someone faints, falls asleep, car stops.
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@ChrisW
It has one built in.
You must keep your hand on the wheel, or it will sternly warn you. If you continue to ignore it, it will safely pull over.
Now, some idiots will get the bright idea of holding down the deadman's switch with a weight.
1
Rich people are more irresponsible than poor people.
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@Ted, irresponsible behavior is abundant among poor people as well as rich. That being said, if you fall asleep on public transportation, no one dies.
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Top notch, Peter; thank you!
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Times change. The rate of technological change is not slowing down.
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There could not have been better words to end this article: "Wake up!" In an emerging tech driven culture where people are not needed, where software controls everything, and where the right to even seek redress in the courts has been reduced to traveling to arbitration at the consumers expense, one feels that the protection of human life in this world is careening out of control.
America needs to wake-up to its real values, its cherished hopes, and its decency toward others. Those can not be automated.
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@Sierra Look back! Every technology advancement brings the same fears you are expressing. The car, brought fears because there were no rules on how or where to use them; aeroplanes were unnatural and the work of the devil. Even the microwave was going to give off deadly waves or contaminate food. No matter how small or big the change, fear of the unknown is always present. We learn to design features into products to rectify those fears.
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When is our society going to stop being so Pollyanna about the latest, shiny new technology and develop a mature and healthy skepticism?
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@CD not any time soon! The entire world is at a race for more automation. Once there were just a hand full of people warning us about AI taking over everything. Now it's almost main stream knowledge and there is no stopping the train unless something drastic happens.
They are simply clickbait, period, exclamation point. One cannot fall asleep and continue to drive for any length of time, the software doesn't allow it. The software requires varied torque on the steering wheel. If, after several reminders unheeded the cat will pull off the road and stop.
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@Walt My friend, I am not so sure. I test-drove a Tesla X 100 D on a deserted freeway and I was able to climb in the back seat and hang out there for a few minutes, just to see if it could be done, before climbing back up front. No touching the steering wheel needed. That's Tesla, though. In other vehicles with lane-assistance tech, if you don't touch the steering wheel for 30 seconds you'll get a "BEEP BEEP BEEP." I am also not sure which vehicle you are talking about when you say "the cat will pull over and stop" after several unheeded warnings. Which autonomous car have you personally driven, please?
@Zellickson A Tesla Model 3 my friend, that I own. I can personally attest. There's even a YouTube vid by NowYouKnow, that completely debunks it. So, as they say, now you know.
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@Zellickson A Tesla Model 3 my friend, that I own. I can personally attest. There's even a YouTube vid by NowYouKnow, that completely debunks it. So, as they say, now you know.
I test drove 2 Teslas, an S, and a 3. They don't let you just drive off in a $130,000 car.
1
The name "Autopilot" is simply misleading and ought to be scrutinized by regulators. The apocryphal story from around 20 years ago was Winnegago RVs adopting that name for a low tech cruise control on their vehicles. An elderly driver with some miliary aircraft history took it at face value, set it, left the driver's seat and went back to join his wife for breakfast. Outsome unsurrising.
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@J111111
Pilots are not supposed to do that in airplanes, without another pilot in the seat.
Same thing.
I’ve been using the ‘Full Self Driving’ feature on my new model X for a month now, and I’m actually more alert when using it, because it’s scary!
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Are these hoaxes? Teslas require you to interact - tap or move the wheel - every 30-60 seconds for autopilot to stay engaged. If you don't, it flashes lights, beeps the horn, and pulls the car to the side of the road. I suppose you could close your eyes and tap but there's no way to simply check out for a nap with the current software. The system was designed specifically to prevent that option.
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@Toscana
Would you not consider that the system could possibly fail?
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I have a Tesla X and have used the autopilot on freeways but still paranoid enough to stay attentive to road conditions.
On the plus side I can't help but wonder if these sleeping instances are among people who have simply fallen asleep at the wheel. In that case they should give some thanks to the Autopilot for keeping them alive. How many times have we read about someone who was killed after falling asleep at the wheel.
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@SBJim I find I have more bandwidth to keep an eye out for stuff on the road with autopilot on then when without. The longer the drive the larger the difference.
Remember trolleys, that ran on tracks? Mass transit, people.
And stop the jabs at Prius drivers. They're helping the planet, not driving gas guzzlers, like their critics.
3
The Tesla autopilot is one thing, but what about the super-distracted ‘videographer’ piloting the other car?
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@Todd Vogel
I wondered about that too. What road was he or she watching or was the co-pilot holding the wheel?
Maybe he is like passed out in his Tesla -- but not really.
These YouTube vids are mere clickbait designed to drive views. I have a model 3 as well. The father-son YouTube team, NowYouKnow did a video on it and the car does indeed pull off the road and stop if it does not detect varied and random changes in torque on the steering wheel.
3
I think it's a great feature for those who TRULY fall asleep in front of the wheel. But of course the fact that it's there makes drivers less worried about falling asleep in front of the wheel, and maybe purposely do so. I sincerely hope they perfect this autopilot thing though, in the end I suspect it will save many lives.
2
624,000 people have died in car crashes since 2000 in the US.
That's WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam US soldiers deaths combined.
On top of that, 30 million other people have been injured. That's twenty times the number of wounded in all US wars since 1775.
All of this in the last two decades.
The technology is still new, but in five years? Ten? Twenty? The engineers will sort it out. Even if it isn't perfect there is a vast space of improvement over the slaughter happening on the roads today.
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I work in machine learning as an engineer and I cannot imagine trusting self-driving cars (in their current form) to this extent. And my personal experience is that I'm far from alone. In fact, I have never met an engineer or researcher who would trust Tesla's Autopilot like this.
There were 1.25 deaths per 100 million miles traveled in 2016. No one truly knows how many miles Tesla's Autopilot has accumulated while truly driving autonomously. Even so, I'm sure it is safe to say that it's nowhere near 100 million yet. And yet there are already multiple Autopilot-linked deaths.
Autopilot isn't even meant to be self-driving. It is far less sophisticated than the experimental systems that are themselves not safe enough to trust without constant supervision. Self-driving cars are still orders of magnitude more dangerous than human drivers. That they might be safer in 2079 is no consolation if you get yourself killed by one in 2019.
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@Matt Tesla's Autopilot has driven 300 million miles by 2016.
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@Yang Gang
I specifically mentioned truly autonomous mileage, not Autopilot mileage overall. Saying an entire third of the overall mileage did not involve driver supervision of any kind seems like a stretch.
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@Matt Its a drivers aid as it stands. Plainly documented. You are still responsible for driving the car.
I have driver assist, which will keep me in my lane and at a safe distance from the car in front of me, But if the lines in the road are faded, it will veer, or if there is a red light with no car in front it will go through it.
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The interesting question to me is whether at this point an autopiloted tesla with a driver asleep at the wheel is more or less dangerous than a regular car with the same driver tired but awake at the wheel.
At some point the answer is going to be less, if it isn't yet (I assume it isn't yet). And at that point, the pointless obstacles governments have and will put up to implementation of autonomous cars and trucks will be recognized for what they are and were - embedded interests resisting change that hurts their bottom line, leading to predictable, statistically inevitable, and totally unnecessary loss of life.
9
Self driving vehicles will always be a threat to safety until they can truly handle ALL driving situations. Augmenting driver control just makes driving more complicated by adding another layer between the driver and the vehicle. It is a bit like dancing when both partners can't agree who will lead or will switch these roles arbitrarily.
We humans need to be fully engaged while driving or the mind will take a nap or wander-off.
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@ZenDen
There's a computer in our heads that's way smarter than anything yet developed in code. Millions of years in the making. Has NO problem telling the difference between, say, a white truck crossing in front of it and the sky (there was a fatal accident in which a self-driving car could not tell the difference). Truly one of the most complex and amazing creations on earth.
Yes, its host gets tired and distracted. But it seems to me way easier and more promising to deal with tiredness and distractedness (perhaps using some technology to help) than to try to make cars as smart as humans at perception and decision-making. And it would have the added benefit of keeping the average human being in the loop, and perhaps prevent the atrophy of this incredible biological computer from lack of use.
6
Here’s a tip: get in front of the Tesla, slow down, and come to a gradual stop. The Tesla will also slow down and stop.
We have a Tesla, and I don’t even use the autopilot. If the lines on the road are a bit iffy, or if it’s raining, the autopilot can respond in unexpected ways. I just don’t trust it.
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@Carrie - Yes this would work but, a stopped car on an Interstate or other busy highway is as big a risk or more than the drowsy driver.
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@Carrie
it will simply pass you if you have "navigate on autopilot."
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@Carrie thinks we should risk an accident with our own vehicle to help these people out of harm's way.
Commendable, no, but foolhardy, absolutely
2
But how about pedestrians walking into a busy street with their phone glued to their ear with wanton disregard of traffic and signals? And skateboarders and cyclists? Everyone, drivers, pedestrians, skateboarders, cyclists all have to follow the rules of the road to make everyone safe
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@Bos As a cyclist I can only say I've never cycled while texting on my phone, but I see drivers in their cars texting all the time, often while they are happily ignoring my right of way. Also, the consequences are vastly different for the driver and the much weaker travelers, and to my knowledge no driver in the US was ever prosecuted for murder/manslaughter for running over a cyclist.
Texting while driving should be punished by revocation of the driver license for life.
By the way, it might well be that the autopilot does a much better job driving than most humans.
13
True--but they're not likely to veer into a crowd or cause a major accident as thousands of pounds of metal at driving speeds--even if your point were addressing the article itself.
8
@jb ... A tesla hit a pedestrian (with a bicycle) on the road a few years back ... dead as dead can be.
1
Peter C. Baker's article is a model of beautiful prose. The ideas are sharp; the writing is also exemplary.
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We bought our Model 3 about 6 months ago, and have never used Auto Pilot. We have, however, used the smart cruise control feature (where the car automatically slows down when approaching another car) on a daily basis commuting to Detroit. When purchasing this car, our goal was to reduce our environmental impact, but we also wanted a check on our driving as we have gotten older. This car fulfills both goals. We have an excellent view behind the car as we back up, it beeps if we begin a lane change when another car is there, and gives us the best navigation system we have ever seen. Many other cars offer these features, but we happened to like this car. The Auto Pilot feature is there, but it will not be used by us.
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@Peggy Brennan My wife has a 2017 Subaru Outback with the Driver Assist features you mentioned, and the adaptive cruise control is definitely a plus. I still fight the lane-holding system, but if you're not as sharp you you'd hope on a given day, it does indeed help. "Auto-pilot" scares me a little, as it might help in many situations, but like other technologies, it can be abused as well.
5
@Jeff K The original comment included reference to the environmental impact of the Tesla. While there are locales in the US that use coal to generate electricity, that is in decline and so electric cars are environmentally less disruptive. Moreover, their maintenance is less frequent (no oil to change, brakes last 2x as long because of regeneration, no air filter, gas filter, no catalytic converter).
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@Bruce Maier - Also an internal combustion engine car is about 20 to 30% efficient and an electric car is more like 80 to 90% efficiency so you have that much less fuel use.
2
"The road is too unpredictable and software designers are too human."
Yes and drunk drivers are too dangerous. Artificial intelligence is a good substitute for real stupidity. If a technology reduces the death rate, are you going to argue against it?
11
@Keith Dow ... technology could prevent driving while intoxicated ... if the vehicle won't start, you won't drive ... for a few hours ... try getting that one through Congress !
2
Perhaps while we vilify malicious tech companies and the drowsy drivers we should also explore what makes a person reach first for a camera.
Honk the horn. Pull in front of the Tesla and slowly decelerate. Be an engaged citizen rather than a silly and self-righteous observer hoping for a personal record number of ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’.
What hath God wrought, Indeed!
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@Anonymous Coward
I would not recommend getting in front of them and slowing down. Let a police officer do that. Don’t risk your life and add yet more reckless actions to an already dangerous situation. There is zero guarantee that acting in such a way will work.
The first way to keep safe is to avoid risk not engage it.
3
What happens when they cause a horrible accident with multiple fatalities?
1
then, likely, there will be overreactive and stupid regulation or legislation that is based on the exception rather than the rule, and a lot of bad human drivers will lose the opportunity to be replaced by better robot drivers, and people will die.
because that's how we like to operate. we want our gun policy to be driven by 1/100000 events, we have already made our aviation safety hostage to even rarer terrorist threats, and every state in the union has named some legislative attack on the Fourth Amendment after a dead or abused child.
we love to govern by emotion and viscera, and ignore data and grey matter.
5
Man is weak and full of sin. Even though I'm of the scientific bent, on a sociological level it does seem to be true. I don't want to trust people with this technology, because people are naughty and like to break rules and see what they can get away with.
And as sure as rain, eventually we'll see someone figure out a way to drive a screaming baby around the block for an hour or three while mom and dad get some sleep.
5
At least twice a Tesla on Autopilot has killed the driver by hitting a large stationary object (I'm counting the semi as stationary because it was moving perpendicular to to the Tesla's motion). In the other case the car swerved out of its lane to hit an exit ramp divider.
Let's leave aside, for now, that Musk should arguably be in jail for this; that "beta" in a life-and-death situation is not the same as beta in a video game (would you board an aircraft "in beta"?); and that these nappers are risking their lives.
The idea that autonomous cars will soon handle all driving situations is a pipe dream. And, until Teslas stop killing people in crashes which any any sane, sober, non-texting driver would easily avoid (crashes which were also in fine weather, by the way), you should disregard any PR-speak saying that autonomous cars are safer than you are.
9
Am I the only person left in this world who actually likes to drive? I think I would go batty in a self- driving car.
15
@laolaohu We have a Tesla, and while my husband loves autopilot for his long, stop-and-go commute, I'm more like you, enjoying the driving experience. The Tesla has been hard for me to get used to, without a stick shift and all, but overall, it's quite a fun drive. The car may be able to stay in it's lane and keep an even distance behind cars, but it's up to you whether to use the feature or not.
2
@laolaohu Me, too. This seems like just another step toward deskilling us into utter helplessness. I love to drive and don't need or want to use the car for entertainment purposes. Or naps.
2
@laolaohu
You are not. And I can assure you, I will never be hostage to a "self-driving" vehicle.
I wonder how much cheaper a basic, mass produced, EV would be by now if so much effort wasn't spent on adding these "features".
5
As times may soon come to prove it, this is a case study in which the advent of new technologies, to a large extent, may bring up the worst in people as this is already ringing true when it pertains to the concept of self-driving cars.
But, what else could be expected when the auto-industry is putting so much emphasis on built-in advanced technologies, whereas their new models are jammed with the latest-state-of-the-art motion sensors and a plethora of extra options (sometimes unnecessary) which, all in all, at least snatches the steering wheels out of the individual's hands, therefore, eradicates self-reliance in this domain.
Then, what are those same individuals, once wired to comb the road as they weave their ways into the traffic are now supposed to do when such technology has made them obsolete at dealing first hand with such primary functions?
2
For 20+ years I was a daily commuter (by car) in and out of the five boroughs. Thankfully, I recently moved and now drive a lot less these days.
What I saw (and still see, every time I visit the city) - in all types of cars, on all the roads, in and out of the city - is driver after driver totally unaware of his/her surroundings, usually typing away at a phone. Or putting on makeup. Or eating what seems to be a multi-course meal. Or reading the newspaper. Or... I've seen just about everything, even news *not* fit to print here!
That said, I can NOT wait for everyone to be 'driving' in one of these Teslas - or auto-piloted machines from other manufacturers. I know they're not perfect, but from my perspective they are already significantly better than the average distracted driver. And that's a win for all of us, not just for the snoozers out there.
It's really incredible what's happened out there. You almost NEVER see two hands on the wheel. Just take a look next time you're out driving...
12
@Local It’s a function of the sheer number of cars on the road, combined with the fact that we now have had two or even three generations of drivers who have been gradually treating the rules of the road as suggestions rather than laws. Signaling, speed limits, traffic lights...all seem to treated as optional rather than mandatory. Driving for 40+ years, I’ve become an extremely defensive driver, and it’s the best alternative these days. As a long-time software developer, though, I disagree that the software on these cars is ready for real traffic; it may never be.
10
I will never forgive the lack of a decent high speed train system in America.
When I grew up in northern Ohio there was an extensive train system just waiting to be modernized and made faster.
Then came the interstate highway system which increased truck shipping instead of train shipping spelling the death of train improvement.
High speed trains today would be the perfect answer to moving people long distances quickly.
Witness the Chinese high speed trains that travel long distances.
I’ll add this regret to my long list of reasons of why I moved to Europe where trains are the best in the world.
38
@Michael Kittle But France has highways and big trucks too right? Don't blame the highways, blame the car companies and the government policies they lobbied for and the propaganda (advertising) that convinced the American public that cars were good and trains, streetcars and mass transportation was bad (except for planes).
Passenger rail was not profitable for the railroads, which is why the government created Amtrack to take it over. Freight traffic was and still is profitable. Warren Buffet owns BNSF and railroads still make money.
https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/the-amtrak-era-is-over-its-time-for-a-replacement/
Bonus: How bad government policy forced light rail's demise:
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise
Some progress is being made with new high speed rail in Florida and a little in California:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/articles/brightline-us-high-speed-railway-florida/
And changing safety regulations to be in line with Europe's:
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/11/23/u-s-finally-legalizes-modern-european-style-train-cars/
1
I’m glad this issue is being discussed! I live in the Bay Area and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people tell me about the ways they are using Auto Drive that have left me speechless. For example, an older gentleman acquaintance once bragged that the Tesla has “changed his life” because he lives in the suburbs and now he is more likely to have a couple more drinks after work because of Auto Drive. Another time I was discussing minivans with a distant friend, and this friend told me that he had once considered trading in his Tesla for a minivan (for his kids), but decided that he couldn’t give up the ability to sleep to and from work. I nearly choked when he said it at first but now I hear these kinds of stories all the time. It’s not that I don’t believe in self-driving cars - I do - but I don’t think the technology is there yet!
12
I have a Tesla Model 3 and it would literally be impossible to fall asleep in autonomous driving mode. It directs you to place turning pressure on the steering wheel about ever 2 minutes. That means jiggle the steering wheel or it turns off autonomous mode. I think these are just people playing jokes on other drivers because there is just no way that anyone could fall asleep in my Model 3 and stay in autonomous mode for more than1 or 2 minutes.
12
I have zero interest in owning a self-driving car because I enjoy driving too much. I love the hands-on experience so much that I still drive a manual 5-speed transmission. Even in traffic, the dance of my feet on the clutch in rhythm with the gas while my mind wanders and eyes survey the scenery is second nature and about as “autopilot” as I’d ever want to be.
When I see a mountain curve ahead and downshift into it, I relish the feeling. The slowing momentum shifting into centrifugal force pulling my body away just as my car hugs the curve is visceral and exciting. It’s still the ultimate “E Ticket ride” after all these years since my first 5 speed, a tiny Toyota Starlet, in 1984.
Automated travel was “the future” as Walt Disney presented it to me as a child riding the Monorail and People Mover, so I don’t fear it. What I fear are men like Elon Musk in an era far different from Walt’s time when science was celebrated and funded by Republicans, extensive trials were standard before pubic release, governmental oversight was robust, and companies respected the laws of states and municipalities. It’s nearly the opposite today which makes it risky even to board a new 737, let alone be a guinea pig for Tesla. The commenter who works on autonomous software states it’s still not able to match complex human decision-making, yet it’s wide open public highways for Tesla.
Between that and my love of driving, I doubt I’ll ever own such a car in my lifetime.
10
@left coast finch
Seconded - I love to drive, I only own stick shifts, must commute.
I wish there could be more consideration, society-wide, to the fact the we still lead daily lives akin to early industrial revolution big cities. We could be transforming (a little EV pun) our society instead of re-interpreting out dated consumer modes.
1
@left coast finch
Me too! I drive a manual Volve station wagon, pretending it is the '62 Corvette I owned 50+ years ago.
1
I once rented a car with lane assist. When I moved left to give a bicycle more clearance, it automatically moved me to the right. These things need a lot more work before I would rely on them.
31
@Nicholas Hotton Oh yes that happened to me when I was driving across a road work lane on the I-15 through Utah. The lane assist nearly drove me off the road because the road work messed up all the lane lines.
I hope someone from Toyota is reading this BTW. I almost got to use your emergency call button!!! Wheeee!!
9
I am reading an article on chaos theory. Technology has been changing exponentially, but human culture, habits, psychology and even neurology cannot keep up with such a rapid speed of change. It leads to distress, duress, anxiety, depression, confusion, contradictions and many small and large oversights, mistakes and irresponsibilities.
We need to simplify, get back to the basics and we need to work on psychology so core self with some adaptations are healthy and in equilibrium.
The world is full of the uneducated, poorly educated, immature, lost, scared, confused, false ego, misogyny, rigid heirarchy, low democracy, low thinking, poorly nurtured, etc. We don't need more technology, we need to handle what we already have better, promote better leaders and be more responsible civic minded compassionate citizens.
Is that so hard?
Obviously it is for millions around the world.
18
I am reading an article on chaos theory. Technology has been changing exponentially, but human culture, habits, psychology and even neurology cannot keep up with such a rapid speed. It leads to distress, duress, anxiety, depression, confusion, contradictions and many small and large oversights, mistakes and irresponsibilities.
We need to simplify, get back to the basics and we need to work on psychology so core self with some adaptations are healthy and in equilibrium.
The world is full of the uneducated, poorly educated, immature, lost, scared, confused, false ego, misogyny, rigid heirarchy, low democracy, low thinking, poorly nurtured, etc. We don't need more technology, we need to handle what we already have better, promote better leaders and be more responsible civic minded compassionate citizens.
Is that so hard?
Obviously it is for many.
3
I am no fan of Musk or Tesla, but I for one can't wait until self-driving cars become ubiquitous. Most people are horrible drivers ... The sooner we turn them into passengers, the better.
190
@Celeste
If that's what you can't wait for, then you should be a fan of Musk and Tesla, given that they ushered in this age.
15
@Celeste You assume that software engineers are better drivers.
I don't have a self-driving car, but the lane assist feature on my car has put me in danger.
If you see my car about to sideswipe yours, it's not because I can't drive. It's because the software engineers haven't figured out what to do with roads that have blurry or messy lane lines.
I can figure out which lines delineate the current lanes, but the lane assist feature on my car often gets it wrong. Pretty darned scary.
28
Unfortunately, unless you’re five years old, you will probably never see this in your lifetime.
I have been driving a Tesla Model 3 for 20 months. With hands on the steering wheel, the AutoDrive feature still requires frequent small movements of the wheel to "prove" I'm still interacting with the car. If those movements are not sensed, the vehicle immediately starts to alert the driver. The next level is to slow down and pull off the road, but I haven't waited long enough to cause it to engage that level of intervention. I cannot imagine that one would fall asleep and still be zooming down the road with this feature. On the negative side, AutoDrive is far from perfect. I have reported to Tesla numerous times when it has recommended lane changes that are unnecessary, and a few other events that were just plain bizarre and unsettling. Unfortunately, I have received no feedback from the company. This doesn't instill confidence in the product, and I use AutoDrive with a bit of skepticism and a lot of care.
119
@Southwester - I have owned my Model 3 for a year now, and it is impossible to fall asleep: the car's 15" screen flashes bright blue after no driver input for a few seconds, then it beeps LOUDLY and instructs you to "TAKE CONTROL IMMEDIATELY."
The AutoDrive feature is rife with problems--like trying to steer me onto the wrong side of the concrete median and into oncoming traffic at a midtown intersection. But on the freeway it is sheer bliss: sit back, listen to the news, and gently bump the steering wheel with your knee every now and then, and it'll do everything else--including slowing all the way to zero and smoothly accelerating to the limit as required by other drivers's actions.
Will it effectively replace the driver as Musk promised at his shareholder's meeting by year's end? Nope. Someday? Maybe. But as someone who has investigated accidents for the largest insurer in the U.S., I'll still be paying attention.
35
@J Young I don't think I'd trust a car that had tried to steer me into oncoming traffic in any possible milieu, but that's just me.
31
@Susan As I noted above to j young, the directions for autonomous mode are very clear. NEVER use autonomous mode on city streets or anything that is not a freeway. It is made very clear in the instructions that the car will not recognize stop signs, stop lights, or pedestrians. He is being very irresponsible if he is using it on anything other than a freeway.
13
Twice I've passed Teslas on I-5 from the Bay Area to L.A., driving in the passing lane, about 10 mph below the limit, with the driver working on a laptop desk set up in the driver's seat, paying no attention whatsoever to anything but his work on the laptop, with perhaps a mile of traffic backed up behind him.
Tesla drivers have replaced Prius drivers as the most selfish and self-involved people on the road.
207
@Benjamin Teral I hope Ben's jab at Prius drivers doesn't mean he's one of those whose blood boils when I gradually accelerate to the speed limit rather than stomp on my gas pedal. The impatient honking of such drivers is an indication of who the "selfish and self-involved" ones really are. Ever wonder why people in other states so often stereotype "California drivers"?
35
@Benjamin Teral I drive a Tesla, so perhaps I'm biased. I don't yet have what Tesla calls Full Self Driving because it's not and won't be for many, many years.
As to the behavior you describe, I've read about it and seen photos and videos. Always in California! I've never seen it in my travels in the midwest and the east coast (which doesn't mean it hasn't happened there). So perhaps I could argue that California drivers are the most selfish and self-involved people on the road.
14
@Benjamin Teral there are about 500K Teslas in operation in California. And you saw two instances of people driving a Tesla in a dangerous and annoying fashion. Therefore, Tesla drivers are the "most selfish and self-involved people on the road". Wow, that's quite a stretch!
24
I have designed and written too much software to have any reliance on the software in a self-driving car -- at least not for another couple of 100 billion test miles.
The road is too unpredictable and software designers are too human.
282
@J Fogarty
Absolutely SO ! I am retired from High Tech back in the early 90s, and, in addition to the problems that you wisely foretell is the simple fact that driving requires *specialized
decision making that may be only a one-in-ten-million
experience during one lifetime. If my car is in a parking lot, for instance, and it is faced with a *sudden choice of hitting another car, or hitting an unmanned grocery cart with packages in it, the software will opt for the grocery cart.
What if one of the "packages" in the grocery cart is
a bundled baby seat ? This is the kind of "value call" that computers are not ready to make.
What our country *is ready for is High Speed Rail like they have in the wee, tiny country of Japan.
167
@J Fogarty
You ever solo a plane? I assume if you did then you would have landed a plane as well.
Did you know that 'software' can land a Boeing 737 with 215 passengers?
We will see autonomous cars within a decade aided by software engineers, AI and machine learning.
19
@SteveRR
Interesting too, bcuz on a dedicated and tower controlled runway there are *far fewer life-threatening choices to *be made than there are on a busy two lane blacktop highway at night.
An aircraft is either, as the tower says : "on glide path, on course", or it is NOT. Corrections ensue against NO other aircraft on that glide path, on that course. On a computer flowchart, that is a pretty simple "Yes/No" decision subroutine.
56
My theory is that Big Tech wants Autopilot cars as it will give the humans in the car even more time to purchase products on Amazon, post updates on Instagram, play games on iPhone Apps, and in general, pay less and less attention to the world around them and the world within them. And frankly, I sort of enjoy driving, even with the inattentive or self-absorbed knuckleheads drifting over or plodding along in the passing lane or idling after the light turns green, as it does allow my mind to wander, to free associate or brain storm, as there is less and less time in my day to ponder and wonder when I am NOT behind the wheel!
10
@rpmars
I truly dislike driving. Invent teleportation ASAP please. So much wasted time and energy simply moving about.
1
Tech shows that almost every industry is a natural monopoly that eventually just turns into rent seeking by the dominant player or a few dominant players. The only difference between socialism and capitalism is who controls the eventual winner, either one insanely wealthy person like Zuckergerg, Gates or Bezos , or the public.
6
Or in the hands of a few corrupt public officials.
@Kenneth Adam Smith's Book "the Wealth of Nations" predicts this outcome.
Consider what would have happened sans autopilot. Mr. Asleep-at-the-wheel would still have fallen asleep, but there would be no backup system to drive the car. And there would have been an accident. With autopilot, there was not. So why are you blaming Tesla's autopilot system?
8
@Guido Fussori No, he would not have necessarily fallen asleep had he been driving the vehicle. I've been off and on training truckers to drive for over 30 years now and I can tell you emphatically that my alert status is much higher when I'm behind the wheel than when one of my students is driving.
2
These videos are fake. I have driven a Model X now daily for 2 years. In order for autopilot to stay engaged you need to more than just keep your hands on the wheel. You need to squeeze, turn it a little, rub it - something requiring a sentient alert being interacting with the vehicle.
The car just doesn't keep going.
These sleeping drivers have you all fooled.
I can't believe how gullible seemingly intelligent people can be when confronted by technology they have zero experience with and therefore easily duped.
13
@Edge Ryder Thank you. I have a Model 3 and there is just no way it would let you remain in autonomous mode with no regular input to the steering wheel.
6
@Edge Ryder Most people should know that snoozing and responding or nudging the wheel are possible and not difficult. It's semi-conscious or involuntary muscle motions, or training ones-self to be partially aware and responsive.
If you see a driver who appears to be asleep or nodding off—in a Tesla or any other vehicle— don’t waste time taking a video. Instead, please honk your car horn to wake them up. You might save many lives.
6
The most noteworthy effect of self-driving cars will be to create massive unemployment. Among suicide bombers. Though drones will be cheaper for small massacres.
4
"Tesla Sleeper videos are undeniably anxiety-inducing" because someone driving another car is watching the snoozing dude while using a phone to capture the video. Eyes open AND straight ahead, folks. Sheesh.
3
@Teresa I assumed that a passenger was doing the filming.
I’ve driven a tesla model 3 with autopilot the last six months for 10000 miles including a trip from Houston to Detroit mostly on autopilot. This article is pure nonsense. You must interact with the steering wheel, not just hold it every 90 seconds or so or the autopilot shuts off with a stern warning. That means you must jerk the wheel slightly or move the thumb wheels to keep it engaged so there’s no way to sleep or being distracted. In fact, a couple of times during my trip the car performed evasive maneuvers to prevent a crash when the autopilot was off. No other car comes even close to this kind of safety. Those videos are fake or most likely staged.
11
How about the kid flying the Russian plane—until it crashes? Large ships crashing into docks because someone is not paying attention? Ferries—including ones here in NYC— doing the same thing?
People doing dumb things in large, complicated machinery is not new. Only iPhones to catch this foolishness are new.
3
“Tesla once generated widespread good will by promising affordable electric cars”...
Huh? Where?
1
I think it should be a vehicular crime to sleep in your self-driving vehicle....similar to driving under the influence of alchohol or drugs....
3
Technological advance is inevitable and despite initial hiccups always advance the needle toward the positive. So rather than fight it, let us demand that our authorities regulate and manage the transition so that the toll on society, from misuse etc, is minimal.
Leaving such regulation to the likes of Elon Musk, who although a tech visionary is abnormally bullish about everything his company produces and is not shy about outright lying, is asking for trouble. The man has no ethical scruples.
I can see almost visualize a terrible auto tragedy involving Tesla and its autopilot technology. Rather than wring our hands regarding the ifs and buts, let us demand that our elected officials and regulatory authorities like NHTSA mandate a well regulated and managed roll out.
NHTSA mandates that the auto companies spend hundreds of $M to ensure that the technology associated with air bag deployment and crashworthiness meet certain minimum standards. We are all the beneficiaries of such discipline. However, I don't see the same scrutiny being applied to autopilot and self driving technology. Why not ?
4
Contrary to what many advocates of electric cars say, they are not emission free. They merely move the source of the pollution to somebody else's backyard, usually poorer, politically impotent communities. After all, the electricity to power the batteries still has to be made somewhere. And the power is still going to be mostly coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. As it is, the demand for electric power far and away exceeds the supply of "clean" sources. Until the "clean" supply comes close to equaling the demand for electricity, increasing the demand does absolutely nothing to promote the lessening of carbon dioxide and subsidiary pollutants.
In any case, the most noteworthy effect of self-driving cars will be to create massive unemployment among suicide bombers. Though drones will be cheaper for small massacres.
3
True, if you’re burning coal or gas to generate electricity. But, if you’re using hydroelectric, nuclear, solar or wind energy then that serves us all well. Look at the positives, and do not assume & dwell on the negatives! I use a Tesla in Ontario, Canada. Our electricity is mostly nuclear, and to the extent we use other sources, it’s only hydroelectric power. It’s all sustainable. That helps! No?
9
@Parth Trived
Parth, thank you for engaging.
In certain areas where "clean" electricity generation essentially meets the demand for electricity, increasing the demand does make sense (though one must also consider the environmental effects of the production and disposal of the vehicles, as well as the creation and efficiency of the electricity distribution infrastructure.) However, in most parts of the U.S., the "clean" production of electricity is tiny compared to the demand.
I put "clean" in quotes, as there is much legitimate disagreement as to how we should consider nuclear energy.
2
I do not consider nuclear power as a sustainable option.
2
People speed. People run red lights. People make illegal turns when pedestrians attempt to walk through crosswalks. A Tesla's computer obeys it's programming, which makes it safer, however, the only way automated cars work is if no humans are allowed to drive. Because people will always mess things up
3
I used to be freaked out by the idea of driverless cars. Now I wish they’d taken over the roads yesterday.
My car’s system isn’t nearly as advanced as Tesla’s but it has made me acutely aware of how unsafe most drivers are. I-25 here is usually bumper-to-bumper traffic traveling from 85 to 0 mph (often closer to the latter). My adaptive cruise control keeps me at a safe distance even on it’s nearest setting - which is at least twice the distance most drivers give here. If you leave any space btwn you and the car in front of you people assume you’re the reason traffic is so slow and tailgate. Which is even more unsafe because a computer is controlling my speed in relation to the car in front of me and can react to a rapid slowdown or stop much faster than the human tailgating me.
3
@Joe
Just put your blinkers on...
If it wasn't so dangerous to the rest of us, the poorer people, unable to afford a Tesla, I'd say let those people stupid enough to nap while on Autopilot suffer the consequences.
One of the big problems of humanity, from a long-term, genetic viewpoint, is the way 'natural selection' can't function adequately in our modern world. Flaws that would have been weeded out of the genome a few thousand years ago ('slow people get caught by cave bears before they can reproduce, no slow genes left in the pool...') are not weeded out now. So people stupid enough to actually do this, putting themselves and the rest of us at risk by their ignorance, are able to live long enough to affect future generations.
This doesn't bode well for the future of humanity, Elon. Since you're focused on the future of humanity so much... time for a fix in the software. After the update, when the Autopilot detects the slower breathing, longer brainwaves, or whatever it is that signal "sleeping", the Autopilot veers off the road into a nearby bridge abutment or ravine, and the car bursts into flame, thus purging the genome of flawed genes.
After all, Tesla already -sold- the car, you got the profits already... and you'll be doing humanity a service. And I imagine once word gets around of this software update, the Tesla drivers might even start paying attention better to your warnings, at least a few of them anyway.
The one smart enough to change, we should keep them around. The rest, bye-bye.
1
@Jim Brokaw
Jim, glad to see someone else acknowledge the imperatives of evolution. I commented [excerpted to fit here] the following yesterday to another article.
"Humans have evolved to prioritize the immediate over the abstract. Until recently, the evolutionary imperative had to be on where the next meal was going to come from and how to protect your family from marauding animals and people. Culture has changed extraordinarily fast in an evolutionary time framework. We are still geared to choose immediate gratification over what might actually benefit us in the long run.
Amazon (and the internet) are simply the latest version of people choosing simple, immediate gratification (convenience, variety, etc.) over complex, delayed gratification of greater benefit.
It's hard to fight your own human nature, even when rationally you conclude you should act otherwise. Is Amazon (or the entire internet) good for humanity in the long run? Unfortunately, we do not make the vast majority of our day-to-day decisions based on the long run. Thus, we allow, even encourage, things to exist before we even start to seriously contemplate the possibility of negative implications and unintended consequences. Consider e-cigarettes, as well as cheap drones and self-driving cars putting suicide bombers out of business."
1
Jim, glad to see someone else acknowledge the imperatives of evolution. I commented [excerpted to fit here] the following yesterday to another article.
"Humans have evolved to prioritize the immediate over the abstract. Until recently, the evolutionary imperative had to be on where the next meal was going to come from and how to protect your family from marauding animals and people. Culture has changed extraordinarily fast in an evolutionary time framework. We are still geared to choose immediate gratification over what might actually benefit us in the long run.
Amazon (and the internet) are simply the latest version of people choosing simple, immediate gratification (convenience, variety, etc.) over complex, delayed gratification of greater benefit.
It's hard to fight your own human nature, even when rationally you conclude you should act otherwise. Is Amazon (or the entire internet) good for humanity in the long run? Unfortunately, we do not make the vast majority of our day-to-day decisions based on the long run. Thus, we allow, even encourage, things to exist before we even start to seriously contemplate the possibility of negative implications and unintended consequences. Consider e-cigarettes, as well as cheap drones and self-driving cars putting suicide bombers out of business."
From my earlier comment: "The most noteworthy effect of self-driving cars will be to create massive unemployment among suicide bombers. Though drones will be cheaper for small massacres."
1
@Jim Brokaw
Evolution doesn’t keep the most capable. It keeps those most supported by the environment.
In some ways you are correct. But our environment supports people of wealth which a Tesla owner is likely on the precipice of. They are technically more in line with the environment than all those who can’t afford Tesla’s.
Now swallow that and think about the President.
Evolution doesn’t choose the best. The environment chooses simply who survives the easiest and those who struggle harder compared to those who have it the easiest.
1
In 1997/8 a 'smart car' program was being tested by the Federal Highway Administration and a key player was Richard Bishop. The below link provides a brief overview of the goals and accomplishments of this program in which Buicks were on autopilot for 8,000 miles of continuous tasks ... I don't believe there were any accidents but not totally sure of that.
The technology has been around and tested for decades but the motor industry has been slow to accept the downside of trying to sell high performance cars to 'real men' ... those that need to make their mark with their driving, including using the car as a weapon.
https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article/120/05/58/367065/Smart-Cars-and-Automated-HighwaysGrowing-Traffic
Regardless, the 'real men' who need their toys of ego gratification are as archaic as the automotive industry, which spends huge amounts of money lobbying to undermine the real benefits of electric trains and buses, systems that can move more people faster, with greater comfort and safety for less money ... all while reducing harm to the environment .
AI? I think of how many times this year alone that both my pc AND my Mac have crashed. Boeing?
About 2,300 teenage drivers were killed last year which is about equal to the amount of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the war began. We keep hunting the planet for some boogeyman while our real threats are drivers, guns, and our healthcare system.
The driving test is far too simple. My one and only test in my life was in a parking lot with nothing else but some orange cones. We never exceeded 20 mph and the emphasis was on my ability to parallel park. Then, they let me out on the road with buses and semis going 3 times that speed.
After that test, no matter what state I moved to I only had to pass a written test and an eye exam.
A bigger question to ask about the Teslas is why on earth do we allow ANY vehicle on public roads that can do top speeds of 250 mph which is what Elon Musk claims his new roadster will do. Even a basic Tesla does around 155 mph. About a year ago, Judge Jeanine Pirro got popped going 120 mph in her Porsche. Her excuse was a) she didn't realize she was doing about twice the speed limit and b) her mother was sick (I guess they don't have EMTs where her mother lives). Sure, she got a ticket and will have higher insurance but so what, she is rich and there is nothing to deter such recklessness in the future. How many drivers don't even have a license or insurance.
The problem is far bigger than self-driving cars.
7
At first, the concept of self driving cars seemed pretty silly to me. Yes, perhaps engineers can do it, but should they - and why? Is it the ultimate passive aggressive move to just be driven around by a robot as though an aristo with a chauffeur? But in time, it dawned on me it has nothing to do with individuals driving, other than the gee whiz, show off factor. It’s about using the general public as guinea pigs while the technology is perfected... for use in taxis, trucks, and other applications in which drivers are paid money. As usual, it is about developing a technology that puts people with limited skills out of work. Get out your wooden clogs, Luddites, it really IS about making you obsolete.
Can anyone make the e-scooters go away?
2
Tesla is a fraud financially and product-wise, and it would be good if the NYT wrote a page one story on its fake announcements, questionable accounting, and constant loss making. Paint shop violations and other environmental impacts mean Tesla is probably the biggest greenwasher in corporate America. Elon Musk should be in prison, not in a CEO spot.
2
Self driving cars are brought to us by the same regulators that brought us the opioid crises, and Boeing 737 air max.
1
On the trademark side you get shot down for calling a synthetic car seat LOVEE LAMB, or a recreational vehicle TITANIUM if it contains no titanium. The use of "Autopilot" to describe a driver-assist device, knowing that the public has long associated said term with hands-free flying, is so deceptive that it should be prosecuted.
"Technology was supposed to make the world more efficient"
Um, ordinary cars are "technology". So is winemaking and so are shoes and watches and plumbing, and for that matter, newspapers. The NYT should stop treating computers, which have been around for many decades, as something special. They're just ordinary machines now, like toasters or desk lamps or winches. Silicon Valley might be on the west coast, and (to put it naively, for emphasis) favor talent over east coast preferences, like what high school you went to, or your dad's country club, but its companies are just as American as GE or GM.
I would like to see these people arrested and thrown in the clink with the Boeing executives. I find logic appealing therefore if you don’t want to drive a car then don’t drive a car. Pretending to drive a car and then not driving the car is like the president getting elected and then not being president.
1
An almost perfect metaphor for (old, white, well-off) America during the Trump era. Hard not to conclude we are doomed.
1
I’ve got a Mercedes with radar cruise and self-steering (lane assist); the cruise feature, which detects objects ahead of the car and adjusts the speed while keeping a driver-selected distance, has been available for over a decade and is quite useful and stress-reducing in traffic. The self-steering feature is more of an annoyance than a help. It’s buggy (less so than Tesla’s based on what I’ve heard from drivers who’ve used both) and stress-creating.
Tesla has taken an inferior version of radar cruise and lane assist and called it “auto-pilot.” It’s fraud, really. Tesla’s former technology partner MobilEye withdrew from is partnership with Tesla in 2016 because of what it characterized as false statements from Musk about the capabilities of its technology. Musk later fraudulently claimed to have an offer to take the company private at $420/sh.
Would you buy a car from this guy?
What is our response to young peoples' dawning realization that computers and AI are not panaceas: Duh!
I was paying bills on my computer when I nodded off. When I woke, I discovered my computer went on a shopping spree. I was now the proud owner of a insta pot, four sweaters, wireless ear buds and a 65” tv. And you thought self steering was dangerous
4
I do not own a Tesla. However, I am astonished on a daily basis by how poorly most people drive.
I find it hilarious that so many people are scared by self-driving cars. You should be scared of the ones that aren't self-driving.
I am looking forward to a future where stupidity-induced traffic accidents do not obliterate millions of hours of people's time every day during their daily commutes and other drive times.
3
All new technology is disruptive. Self-driving cars will certainly be that way, perhaps hugely so. Tesla's approach is to gradually implement new capabilities to make sure they work well -- a recent update helped my Tesla Model 3 recognize and correctly handle highway construction cones and barrels, for example. Before that, when there was construction, I turned off autopilot and took over.
We fear new technology, but usually for the wrong reasons. Autopilot now makes me a far, far safer highway driver. As long as I don't actively defeat its features to ensure my attention, it makes driving on highways with people texting, drinking, falling asleep, or doing their hair a heck of a lot less terrifying.
So let's celebrate that these people are still alive instead of reacting with fear.
18
@Tom Harrison
Ok, however should you be able to sleep with autopilot on?
Given the premise that a driver has to be ready at any time to take over from autopilot, sleeping, texting, drinking, reading, or doing ones hair should never occur, autopilot or not.
If a driver is not primarily focused on operation of a vehicle, they should not be driving.
3
Well that insightful little essay certainly shook a wide spectrum of commentary from readers, both for and against.
Long before Tesla I fell asleep at the very end of a long early morning drive home. My foot had come off the gas pedal and I was off the road and coasting downhill through a thick carpet of autumn leaves aimed directly at the quaint village pump that was a beloved centrepiece of my little Connecticut town. I braked and skidded to a stop mere inches from a village disaster. Dare I suggest Tesla would have avoided the potential messy problem.
Today I Uber or hitch rides with friends. Were I to get another car it would most certainly be a FSD Tesla.
Yes, I believe drivers should be alert and awake. It's clear we have entered a transition period when it comes to Full Self Driving. Already the accident statistics very significantly favour FSD. Things will only get better as more solutions emerge to keep drivers engaged.
4
there is enough data now to conclude that driving with autopilot is safer than driving without. ignoring the data and relying on what you think "ought to be" is dangerous. I would rather all the drowsy drivers drive Teslas.
5
I don't understand how it is possible for a driver to stay asleep for long given how loud is the alarm when the driver doesn't respond to the initial warnings. Also Tesla claims that the car will pull over and stops, although I've never seen this happening in real life, if the driver doesn't respond.
3
@Afp I also don't understand how these things happen, so I tested my Tesla Model 3 in a safe area. As you say the alerts are incredibly loud, and yes, after ignoring several the car did pull over, turn on hazards, and stop on the roadside. I cannot imagine how, without an explicit attempt to defeat the safety mechanism, these people are falling asleep for so long.
5
How about all the freeway drivers looking at their phones, texting, talking with the headset to their face, that are actually lapsing in the control of their vehicle? In my non-scientific studies its darn near 50%.
Ok, I confess I'm a Tesla driver. But Autopilot is so confidence inspiring, I feel at risk when I DON'T have it on. I use it even on side roads to keep both my speed (it auto detects the speed limit on the road) and lane navigation in check. Autopilot is also so convenient and relaxing I choose to drive at any distance up to 600 miles, given the flexibility in schedule, avoiding the cattle calling that is modern aviation and the lower emissions impact (not to mention the .02/mile cost for charging at the Tesla Superchargers). I would encourage the author to experience it firsthand.
FYI, I feel the ghost photos are staged (at least by the drivers).
10
Question for a Tesla driver: if it sets your car to the speed limit, is there any reason it wouldn’t also suggest you move to the clear right lane, rather than creating a huge clog of traffic in the passing lane? Our traffic laws say “keep right except to pass” but I regularly end up passing Teslas on the right, as they will not move over into the empty right lane. Just curious. I pass cautiously and not at a ridiculous speed difference but I still find it very irritating. It’s my problem if I get a ticket (divided freeway, clear conditions, no need for anyone to hyperventilate about me doing 10km over).
@Al Do Usually they are going as fast as the car in front of them. But at safe stopping distance since you're tailgating you view it as clogging.
@Al Do
Tesla has two tiers to its self-driving capabilities: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD). Autopilot can maintain speed in a given lane but does not have automated lane changes. The optional $7000 FSD package incorporates lane changes as well as other features. It is possible that the drivers you've encountered were using the base Autopilot capabilities.
It would be an easy problem to correct. Require autopilot suspend itself for 10-second intervals, at random, every minute or so.
4
Here’s the thing. A Tesla with autopilot is dramatically less likely to be in a crash than any other car with a human driver in control. People have a tendency to look at the videos of napping Tesla drivers or the few reports of fatal accidents involving Teslas, and commence with the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, but fail to compare that to all the napping drivers in any other car and all the fatal accidents in any other car.
Teslas - and presumably all the other self-driving cars under development - “learn” as they drive. So do human drivers, right? The difference is that the Teslas and other self-drivers learn cumulatively. They “phone home” with their driving experience. The best human drivers are those who have accumulated lots of miles of experience and lived to tell about it. The automatons get that, too, plus all the experience of every other car in the fleet, quickly compiling more experience than is physically possible for any human driver. A brand new Tesla already has more driving experience than you do. It also is never sleepy, never angry, and never drunk. Is it infallible? No, but it is statistically going to be a safer, better driver than almost any human.
33
Thanks for your brilliant comment. As a Tesla driver I couldn't agree more.
2
@Michael -- Until years-long, all-weather, round-the-clock testing involving mixed fleets of autopilot cars and human driver cars in busy urban areas have been completed, claims of superior safety for autopilot remain baseless techno-babble.
Try to imagine what political shenanigans will be required to get testing of that sort approved. Which cities will choose to turn their citizens into guinea pigs?
2
I would think it would be pretty hard to continue to pay attention while not actually doing anything. I would definitely nod off.
4
@SE That's not true. I've driven for long stretches and I keep my eyes on the road. Autopilot at this stage is more like a copilot that's reliving me from the mundane tasks of keeping my speed and staying in my lane.
3
Raders should watch videos of the people who make this tech.
The people in tech don't appear to be smart, deep or have any interest in the philosophy of what they are doing.
They get to work on shuttle busses and kids toy scooters.
They work on unsavory projects because their companies provide perks like all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal they can eat.
They spend their days doing show and tell on white boards littered with low tech sticky notes.
This is not the work of big thinkers, it's what Kindergarteners do.
When anyone in tech is asked asked deep or complicated questions (like in The Weekly episode on Deep Fakes or Elon Musk in almost every video), they don't have a good notion of what they are even doing.
7
It's pretty clear that the software for monitoring the drivers' alertness isn't working, and that the "beeping" the system does is insufficient. Somehow pilots of airplanes on autopilot manage to stay awake (usually). They do this by being adequately rested in the first place, monitoring their progress, listening to something engaging, and periodically turning the gizmo off. This is unacceptable behavior on the part of the drivers, and Tesla needs to do more to safeguard against it.
5
As a Tesla owner, I get scared when I see people piloting their cars without Autopilot. People are not meant to drive, and most people are really bad at it.
14
Please call your representatives in government and ask them to support more funding for mass transport like Amtrak which the Republicans keep trying to defund. Your grandchildren will thank you for this in helping to save our planet. Think future the way many young people are doing today in Europe by refusing to fly and instead to take trains that are run on electricity that are powered by renewables. Love falling asleep lulled by the rocking of a train.
20
@Constance - Well, that sounds good but it wasn't that long ago that Amtrak took their maiden voyage on a new system from Seattle to Los Angeles. The train ended up in the commuter lane of I-5 during rush hour because for some reason, the 2 engineers forgot to apply the brakes before he hit the hairpin turn and tried to take it at 82 mph. I have no idea how that could have happened since they had recently left the Tacoma station and surely knew it was coming up. Mercy, he was traveling right next to I-5 and could read the signs telling him where he was at. I love Amtrak but have not gotten back onboard yet.
5
@tom harrison Because the train companies lobbied against equipment that enforces speed limits. Trains so equipped cannot exceed the safe limits. Kinda like those company cars...
I'll drive a Tesla or any other vehicle equipped with auto-drive when my insurance company will cover unassisted auto-drive and no points or upward adjusted premiums or risk group algorithms assigned to me.
2
The article is highly biassed against Tesla or else reflects plain ignorance. First, highway accident statistics show that Tesla autopilot improves safety considerably. Also, it's hard to fool the system. I have to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel in order to prevent the system from warning me and eventually taking over. Nor has Tesla yet come out with full self-driving technology. That software still is in development and will no doubt be released carefully and gradually. Tesla Motors always gets the shocking headlines, even though ICE vehicles are responsible for the vast overwhelming majority of fatal accidents. Teslas have been involved in only a small handful of them and are proven far more safe than any other vehicles on the road.
19
I ALWAYS drive my Tesla with my hand on the steering wheel. Nevertheless, I constantly get warnings because the pressure my hand exerts isn’t heavy enough. Unless the ‘sleeping driver’ rigged his steering wheel, which I know people do, his car would slow and stop if the warnings didn’t wake him. There is no mystery. Autopilot is a safety feature.
14
I use autopilot on my boat in the middle of the ocean with no boats nearby and we take 3 hour shifts to monitor our instruments so that someone is awake near the helm at all times. In a car, surrounded by moving objects with a set path, a Tesla without a human monitor is criminal.
4
What an excellent argument for the installation of a substantial air horn on my old Geo Metro.
8
If you want to sleep during a commute use public transportation or create a train-lane for cars.
Autopilot is cruising straight into a law suit.
4
There aren’t many Tesla’s down under so still very much a novelty here. I have been trying to perfect that bored dreamy slouch while other people chuckle and take video.
1
Is anyone concerned that the people making these videos are simultaneously driving and filming? One can assume they are not driving cars that have autopilots.
10
@Deb Bergfeld - That is now against the law here in Washington. If you are even holding a phone talking while driving you can get a ticket for $136. And the police have actually been issuing tickets. The city-council is even thinking about banning new drive-thrus to get people to put their hands on the wheel rather than a phone, a sandwich, while screaming at kids in the back, as a dog sits on their lap.
1
Yes, what is the point of this article? Is Mr Baker not aware that thousands of drivers fall asleep at the wheel of internal combustion cars every year? That lack of sleep, sleep induced by drinking too much, and fatigue causes thousands of crashes by drivers of Fords, Toyotas, Infinitis, and more traditional engine cars? No? It's just Tesla he's after?
Perhaps he would like to point out that those drivers who appear to be asleep are not dead, and have not caused accidents?
Does he want us to forget all of the crashes by drunk or asleep or unconscious drivers in regular cars?
Otherwise, what's the point?
13
@Sean -- Actually, what proof does anyone have that some of those drivers were not dead?
Exactly. In any other model of car the driver would have driven into oncoming traffic and killed himself and others. Tesla should be praised for having saved a life not punished because a driver passed out.
2
"Autopilot" is a semi-autonomous artificial intelligence device. It is a fundamentally flawed design because it relieves the operator of all 3 driving functions (braking, throttle control, and steering) but relies upon the operator to be vigilant and ready to resume driving at any instant. However, human beings are not generally able to maintain vigilance for an extended period when they have nothing physical to do. Relieving the operator of need to steer especially jeopardizes vigilance since steering is the one physical driving function which requires physical adjustment almost constantly, however slight that adjustment may be. Operator vigilance is a necessity because "Autopilot" is not capable of handling all driving situations and is not fully reliable to always properly handle even the driving situations it is capable of.
"Autopilot" should be banned from use on the public roads and immediately disabled.
Furthermore, no autonomous or semi-autonomous device from Musk/Tesla should ever be permitted in public use. Musk and Tesla have demonstrated, by word and deed, that Musk places the safety of the public subservient to his obsessive determination to develop his self-driving creations and foist them on the innocent public. Musk essentially told us that we just have to suffer "Autopilot" caused accidents and deaths so that he can further develop his "Autopilot". He asks us to take on faith and on his very misleading statistics that "Autopilot" will save lives.
4
First, the accident rate on autopilot is about one third of the rate while the driver is in charge. Second, Teslas have been consistently rated as among the safest cars ever made. Third, Teslas don't spew out dangerous gases that kill thousands each year. Despite your comment safety is deeply embedded in the DNA of the company.
2
@Steve
The Musk statistics you cite are extremely misleading to the point of deception. They are defective is a number of different ways. Description is too long for this forum but are readily available via internet search. Even NHTSA has taken Musk to task for making false safety claims.
Cradle to grave emissions from large battery BEVs like Teslas are only slightly less than cradle to grave emissions from ICE cars. Emissions from large battery BEVs are higher than would be from PHEVs with battery sufficient for about 70 miles of pure electric use. The source of the problem is the very high emissions and other environmental damage from mining, manufacture, and disposal of lithium batteries.
AI doesn't get tired, drunk, or angry. Yes, there will be a few accidents where it is faulted, but in the big picture our roads will be FAR safer.
14
@Hmmm
You HOPE that will be true. But there is no evidence whatsoever that it actually is. Furthermore, as the article mentioned, there are more than just the 2 alternatives of autonomous vehicles vs human driven vehicles.....there is also human driven vehicles with automatic brakes to avoid collisions when the human fails to detect the hazard in time.
Indeed, I contend that it can be demonstrated mathematically that human drivers with such automatic braking devices would actually be safer than purely autonomously driven cars, even if the autonomous devices could ever be developed to be both highly reliable and capable of all driving situations.
@Hmmm - Isn't that what Boeing thought?
Autopilot is an incredible technology that saves lives and is over 9x safer than a human driver. The data is there for fact driven people who care to explore further, but of course that doesn't generate clickbait for news media.
11
The Tesla autopilot is not bad when all you are doing is staying on the highway in one lane. But it does require you to keep your hands on the wheel. In fact, even when my hand is on the wheel, it thinks I’m not paying attention and beeps a warning. I’m not sure how long it will work for people who are asleep.
3
Tesla should stop calling it Autopilot. Autopilot, like on a plane with a pilot, does handle the controls and navigation without manual inputs. Even then, pilots are expected to be totally vigilant.
Self-driving cars are being sold on the wrong principles: They will allow us to sleep on the way to work, or work, or have meetings, or have sex, or read a book, or drink, or whatever. These are poor justifications for separating people from their responsibilities as drivers. IF there are improvements to efficiency or traffic management, fine. If not, self-driving cars will only be a gadget to be abused.
1
Subject aside, this is outstanding writing. The writer's point of view, sentence construction, word choice, use of imagery, simile, and metaphor all make the prose sing. And not a wasted word.
Yes, I was laughing much of the time. These two sentences, in particular, got me due to the insight and delivery of the writer.
"Our perceptual template for “car moving down road” contains, it seems, a fixed slot for “conscious driver.” Seeing that slot repurposed for a nap takes a familiar tableau and scrambles it into something uncanny and charged with menace."
Thank you. Nailed it!
3
Enhanced autopilot is wonderful. Driving on the NJ turnpike can be very tense. But auto pilot keeps me right in my lane all the time and adjusts for cars slowing or merging. Anyone who has not driven a Tesla cannot appreciate the difference between auto pilot and the worthless “lane assist”. I doubt if anyone purposely naps while driving a Tesla
7
Key challenges for self-driving cars are 1) the people in non-self-driving cars who do unpredictable and often foolish things, and 2) a road system that is designed for human drivers. There will be a tipping pointing the future when the entire system is designed to support autonomous driving, at which point we will have far safer and more efficient transportation. But it will be a different world indeed.
4
I doubt the veracity of the videos... as it would be low hanging fruit for pranksters.
That said.. Tesla self driving software is not safe and won't be for years for the purposes of handsfree driving.
In fact.. the technology for SAFE autonomous driving is probably more then a decade away... no matter what Elon, the master at deception, says.
Tesla offered some really great innovations that have moved the industry forward at a faster pace then otherwise... but competitors have largely caught up now, and it will be left to the large mutal investments in autonomous driving technology to take it across the finish line. Tesla likely will not survive the decade either... because they had a window of about 5 years to dominate a space in the market and they largely failed... not due to their technology but rather due to their substandard ability to mass produce vehicles.
2
Could be worse - I was once passed on the Verizano Bridge by a driver and passenger I very quickly got far behind.
It was clear they were having an argument - in sign language.
I do not want to leave the impression that I have any problem with hearing-impaired drivers - if I did, I’d be calling for volume limits on automotive hyper-sound systems which cause your car to shake violently - when they pull up next to your vehicle.
The driver (male) drifted across lanes as he frantically waived both hands at the woman riding shotgun.
She responded by sticking a map over his hands, obscuring the windshield, while also gesturing wildly.
Then again, I missed - barely - becoming part of a severe dozen-car plus pileup on the Cross-Bronx Expressway when an apparently awake, if not mentally present driver decided to add another lane to a rush-hour packed roadway - driving down the striped marker separating left and center.
With nowhere to go, more than a dozen cars lost bumpers and either left- or right- doors and fenders as he barreled his car along, apparently managing, eventually, to force an opening to the right and up and out a legal ramp.
Casualties were apparently avoided in those pre-cell CB days, as panicked drivers shouted to those ahead to pill as far to left or right as possible.
Three cheers for a system that, if the video is real - neither staged nor manipulated - shows technology that may be saving lives when properly used, let alone when abused.
4
I have been a motorcycle rider for more than 40 years. I have learned to keep a large ball bearing or rock in my pocket to deter drivers who find it funny to tailgate at high speed people on motorcycles. Not so funny when the rock crashes through their windshield at 90mph.
3
@Paulie p-gravel is both cheaper and gives deniability.
I am a technologist (reference below) and I fell, big time, for the hype in the late '90s and early '10s about how great tech could be in transforming our lives for the better. I still believe some of it and think it will take time to realize the best potentials. BUT, as of now, I have this warning: technology is your enemy.
Can't lay out a full argument in the space available so I will just give a short outline. As personal computers and computation systems for individuals developed, there were elements of choice included. As the processing power has grown dramatically, more and more choices in how you use computers (and computer things) is being taken away and we, all of us, are being captured by the programming in the machines. They tell us what we can do, how we are supposed to do it and I dare anyone who didn't build the things to find a way around the forced instructions.
Simple tasks are being complexified to the point where there is no on or off button, you have to go through procedures to do everything. Machines are not being constructed to carry out tasks, they are being made to order you around and intimately control how you use them.
Some of this falls under the heading of trying to make things more "user friendly" when, in fact, they are user hostile.
6
Self driving cars, in most situations, are an unfortunate joke. They would take away our ability to drive ourselves by lowering skills and learning, ultimately resulting in more crashes when the human driver took over.
This is the pathway of technology generally: remove the "human element" on the assumption that the machine is perfect. It isn't and never will be.
We bought a Vizio screen recently. The instructions said, in effect, if you don't agree to allow us to spy on your viewing, take this screen back immediately. Duh?
We are being set up for constant marketing, constant monitoring and ultimately turned into helpless creatures who can be saved...only...by...technology.
**Reference point from above: I am a technologist in that I imagine, roughly design and, with the help of others, implement uses for newer technologies, mainly in networking, fiber optics and satellites. I have pioneer status in digital video, a tech that has swept the world and changed visual communications drastically.
3
ANY device that distracts a driver is dangerous, be it a cell phone, one of those giant screens bolted to the dashboards of newer cars, cruise control or the newest self-driving systems. When a driver begins to depend on what amounts to labor-saving devices, he begins to lose his abilities as a motorist and to increasingly become dependent upon the car to make all the vital decisions for him. When (not if)any of the automated systems fail, the driver may be completely unable to suddenly shift focus from whatever day dream he was having, assess the immediate danger and to respond in time to avoid disaster.
Today, there are still far too many bugs in all the self-drive systems for drivers to become passengers.
4
@ CABOT-
Cruise control has been around for quite a while. I would not lump it in with other technological advances. I have used cruise control for decades, and just like anything else, it takes some getting used to as to when it’s safe or not safe to use. Self driving cars are at the other end of the spectrum. And as for large, dashboard-mounted screens? It’s rare not to see someone fiddling with those “hands-free “ devices, making them as dangerous as playing with a cellphone while driving, IMHO.
The question is what should one do if one sees this situation in the future. I think the best solution is to drop behind the vehicle and try to read the plate. Then one should call 911, report the situation, make and model of car and location of the vehicle. Expert state police can then force the vehicle to come to a stop by boxing it in. That driver might not be sleeping. He/she may be have overdosed.
This situation is also one that should provoke a discussion, whether law enforcement officials should have the ability to override the autopilot software. Although a direct override might provoke outcries about privacy, Tesla has wifi communication with these cars, so there might be a national emergency system whereby Tesla could cooperate with law enforcement to bring such a vehicle under control.
6
@Jeff
You mean, Tesla would know where I am driving at all times?
A future in which all cars are self-driving is inevitable. What scares most of us is that it might happen in our lifetimes, The transitional period in which only some cars are self-driving is particularly worrisome. I fear we may have have entered it.
1
I thought the reason why we developed self driving cars was so that the driver could do other activities safely without staring g at the road.
Now we are complaining that the driver cant go to sleep because it worries the other drivers who they themselves might be texting ,drinking
. Lets make up our minds, wat do we really want and stop these conversations that bear no fruit
Boeing is a very safe airplane, that was just a few freak accidents that those planes fell out of the sky.
Flying is the safest way of traveling.
Yet the pilot is really only there for takeoff and landing. Once you reach cruising altitude (maybe before), autopilot gets you to the destination. Pilot only has hands on the controls for the first and last 30 minutes.
The day when we allow widespread use of such technology on our highways cannot come quickly enough.
40,000 lives lost each year to car crashes. We can, and should, do much better.
8
@Bill in Yokohama Flying is also safe because the numbers of planes compared to the available space for travel is far more favorable than for cars on roads
13
The questions are never really asked. Which is better?
1. A distracted driver on a cell phone in a car that can easily crash into the barrier or another car or fail to respond appropriately to what some other driver may be doing or not doing, possibly unexpectedly?
2. A self-driving car that prevents the car from driving into the barrier and may or may not fail to respond appropriately to what some other driver is doing. However, it is unlikely to do anything unexpected or erratic?
3. Multiple cars in proximity, most of the drivers are distracted on their cell phone, one car does something unexpected?
4. Multiple self-driving cars on the road, all in proximity. None will engage in something unexpected, outside of some non-driver incident or a car malfunction like a wheel coming off, everyone arrives safe?
I'm starting to think that the last one is the safest....
.
9
@SMcStormy
Manual transmissions. If every car had a manual transmission, drivers couldn't ext. make every car manual. No more distracted drivers.
8
@Anti-Marx
I get that manual transmissions are less efficient than many automatic ones, but manuals would cut down on drinking and driving and distracted driving. they really seem like the best solution. it's a Michael Bloomberg type idea.
@Anti-Marx At the moment a manual transmission is the best anti-theft device.
1
It isn't just Tesla. Many car manufactures have similar "super" auto-pilot systems now. These systems are a good backup to sleepy drivers. Overall these systems are making us safer. But there will always some who don't get it that these systems are not 100% effective in all situations.
8
Quite the metaphor, asleep at the wheel while the world speeds toward disaster. Society is being lulled into deeper and deeper autopilot states by all algorithms, AI, infotainment and endless marketing being foisted upon us. What ever happened to that nice idea called "progress"?
9
@Jplydon57 Great point, it appears we really do live in a society.
I imagine people in other cars fall asleep at the wheel fairly often--sometimes with cruise control on. What happens in those situations? This situation with the Tesla may be a safer situation than those.
9
@JK When the car doesn't take over steering, drivers can't stay asleep for long. But you're right that falling asleep at the wheel is a significant cause of traffic accidents.
1
@Susan You are correct. Why we should not drive while intoxicated or when tired and sleepy. All the "but but buts....we need to get where we're going..." become pointless when you're dead.
@JK
I knew someone who was in an awful wreck because the driver fell asleep at highway speeds with cruise control on. His wife, in the passenger seat., was on the side of the car that shaved the guardrail at a high speed for however long it took him to wake up. She was badly injured-hospitalized for some time. I think older people should be very cautious about taking highway trips after a certain age anyway. And unless one is having a lot of knee and foot problems I think that cruise control should be avoided. On most Texas highways the traffic is so heavy at all hours that it is pointless to even try to use it anyway.
1
Here is the really sad thing about all of this. We could have had trains and decent, frequent buses.
278
If a car piles into a parked emergency vehicle on the side of the road with the car on autopilot and the driver asleep, who is responsible? The driver or the manufacturer of the autopilot?
This was unfortunately a real life incident where a Tesla demolished itself in the back of a fire truck on a freeway
To me, manufacturers should be as scared of this tech as some sensible drivers are
Commercial aircraft have had the capability of departing and landing without human intervention for decades, but they don’t use it
There’s a good reason for that. Same one that exists for autos. Tech is great but it has limitations
14
@We The North not true. In Europe full auto lands are commonly done with no input from the pilots other than turning the system on. Cat 3b landings. Here in the US the pilots disengage the autopilot at 200 feet above the runway.
I own a Tesla and use autopilot whenever I can. There is no question it does a better job driving 90% of the time. But it's not 100% so I pay close attention. Tesla owners who sleep at the wheel are engaged in risky behavior - but far less risky than talking on the phone, texting, eating a hamburger, weaving through traffic, etc.
54
@David I would trust the auto pilot more than many drivers!
1
@David Well, if they're not sleeping, they probably do all of those other things, don't they?
There is as yet no car able to drive itself safely. However used as an expert system to warn a driver when an unsafe condition is imminent the preliminary experimental numbers from Tesla indicate a big improvement in safety. Since driver inattention or distraction causes so many accidents this makes sense.
11
Fifty percent of the time drivers hesitate when the traffic light turns green. WHY? Because they are in the middle of a text and are looking down. They're completely oblivious to what's going on around them. It doesn't matter what the penalty is, it happens constantly.
Auto driving may save us all.
21
@Bond broker I hesitate when the light changes because often someone runs the red light and I want to be sure the oncoming cars are actually going to stop before I proceed.
69
@JK : As a pedestrian and a parent, I can attest to this problem as well. I no longer trust the Walk signs, and have taught my kid not to trust them either.
16
@JK, Traffic light delay is almost always because of cell phone use. The delay is much longer than is needed to check for cross traffic.
4
I have a Tesla and drive on autosteer all the time. It’s true that I can take a nap while driving.
For 25 to 35 seconds.
That’s not enough time for good sleep.
So I stay awake.
13
Others suggest the video is a fake because the wheels appear to not be moving (or moving slowly)—clearly these commenters forget that the strobe effect on spoked wheels—combined with video frame rates—can easily cause fast-moving wheels to appear slow or stationary.
15
It is uncertain if self-driving cars will be an improvement over human drivers. Regulators will make decisions based on data-- if self-driving cars are, in fact, safer, then they will be approved.
Currently, a human using Tesla on autopilot appears to be 8 times safer than a human driver without any computer support.
But it's unclear if this is an apples-to-apples comparison, since Tesla has only released a few details. Regulators will have access to full information, and eventually, I think Tesla will make it all transparent as well.
Soon Tesla will have nearly a million vehicles on the road, all gathering information to improve its algorithm. Yes, there are a lot of challenges-- but it's worth a try and appears to be paying off.
16
@Chris as you say "... if self-driving cars are, in fact, safer, then they will be approved."
My answer: when auto insurance companies cover them entirely without driver liability, then they will be approved BY ME. After all, who would know better? Insurance companies who pay if something goes wrong.
9
@Chris
"Currently, a human using Tesla on autopilot appears to be 8 times safer than a human driver without any computer support."
I find this assertion nothing less than astonishing for a number of reasons. Can you please cite the source of this research?
12
Tesla provided the instrument of destruction and told its buyers that self-driving cars are here! That they then warn its users to keep a hand on the wheel and stay alert is in direct conflict with the sales pitch. Musk is a very bright charlatan.
Self-driving cars are decades away from safe realization. One aspect of "intelligence" that all artificial intelligence systems lack is situational awareness - an awareness that here goes beyond merely seeing other vehicles, pedestrians, physical objects on the road. (I'm a computer jock, half a century in software R&D.) Cruise control, to be used only on almost empty highways, with the driver still maintaining steering and operational alertness and going to full manual in the proximity of any other vehicle or other source of interference, is fine, but the term "self driving" should be forbidden.
Any manufacturer selling that feature should be held legally liable in any incident occurring while the vehicle is in self-driving mode -- even if the supposed driver is passed out.
27
Here's how it's going to work in my case: to sell me a vehicle with these features, the manufacturer is going to have to pay ME to defray the implied liability, including my perception of the liability of sharing the road with anybody using these things. Or I'll just ride the train and buy a boat with the money instead.
2
@Austin Liberal
It's not a sales pitch, it's a technology proven to be over 9x safer than a human driver. Do the research.
1
We have witnessed that automation produced pilots who lost the basic skills to navigate, aviate and communicate when machines fail. Full autopilot will lead to worse results because drivers have no motivation to maintain driving skills. Some the new innovations like auto stopping, adaptive cruise control with a auto braking compensate for driver inattention. Autopilot encourages inattention. It not be offered in cars.
10
The definition of FSD is no driver attention required. We're a ways off from this but when it arrives no driving skills will be needed.
I think a lot about circumstances that may cause problems for self-driving cars.
1. parking lots, as we use my disabled parking permit if I intend on going inside and we don't if I stay in the car.
2. 4-way stops.
3. road covered in leaves or snow or anything that obscures the lane markers.
4. road construction with detours or with people directing the cars in specific directions.
5. power outages at signal-controlled intersections.
6. stand-offs in parking lots.
7. school zones and reduced speeds.
8. construction zones and reduced speeds.
The proposal that really scared me was the test car with no steering wheel or, if I recall, brakes! Because the test drivers kept trying to override the auto system. Don't recall who came up with that scary idea.
I'm sure others will have more concerns. Until these issues, and others I haven't even thought of, are addressed, I will not consider a self-driving car.
15
"We fell in love with Amazon, but now we miss the local stores it closed." How about Walmart? It hollowed out small towns by causing small local businesses to close. I believe this led to online purchasing, trying to avoid Walmart's shoddy merchandise.
45
@Pat You are absolutely right!! It was Walmart, and my small town was hollowed out long before Amazon arose. We all hoped that access to online markets might help small town businesses, but financial raiders and lack of antitrust enforcement has destroyed the small/medium business landscape.
2
@Pat what does this have to do with tesla and self driving cars?? are you worried about "hollowing out" chrysler or ford? don't worry, they are hot on teslas heels and will be introducing their own self driving cars in the next two years.
On a trip in or out of Miami driving on 95 North or South from West Palm , you may as I have , come across something similar but not quite the same . The driver usually not behind the wheel of a Telsa on Autopilot .
I have seen I believe twice older Floridian men one in a Toyota Camry, and one in an older Lincoln driving on the highway apparently napping the car I assume o cruise control.
A couple of loud and constant hoots on my horn did the trick and woke them from their slumber .
I used to wonder why there appeared to be so many accidents on this stretch of highway , and put it down to Floridians or tourists driving at either two speeds 45 or what seemed like 145 MPH . But having seen the Driving while napping trick, I am not so sure the problem is always speed related.
7
Is it possible that it is not the soporific effect of the Tesla "auto/driver assist" that put the driver to sleep but the fact that he/she just dozed off the way hundreds of drivers do every year on our highways? AND that, because he/she was driving a Tesla, a crash was averted?
As a Tesla driver, I welcome the help from self steer but I KNOW I cannot, and should not, depend on it. But it is a great help in many situations.... LOVE my Tesla.
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@Ellinor J
Right. The experts say that with any safety feature, drive like it's not going to work.
4
I work in the IT field as a Database Administrator we along with network administrators and are the countervailing forces to the developers like Musk who tend to have a cavalier mind set in creating applications, where they dont tend to think about the consequences of their decisions. The general public should be made more aware of how technology is created.
14
It took close to a century to come down hard
on Drunk Driving.
Now what will happen with people who fall asleep
inside their quasi-self driving cars
or inside their certified self-driving cars ?
I can barely go a day without my computer acting up.
All I do is email, write comments on the NY Times
and some letters.
Why anyone expects a computer system to drive your car,
no matter the weather, no matter the temperature, no
matter how bumpy the road and thus put your life and the lives of those around you in absolute danger is beyond me.
What will happen with used cars whose computer system
is beginning to fail and whose owners cannot pay to get them fixed but still need the cars to drive them to work...will be
nothing short of a disaster.
46
@John Brown, I am quite sure the designers have thought of that. I doubt that the vehicle will operate with a faulty computer system. The aging battery system would be my worry in buying a used Tesla.
2
@John Brown
You don't understand the tech. "Your computer" isn't the same tech as the super-processor found within a Tesla complete with 16 ultrasonic sensors and radar.
Should airplanes remove their technology and autopilot?
2
And no one at Tesla could POSSIBLY have anticipated this inevitable outcome? It's well past time for government regulations to protect the public from this nonsense, since Elon Musk has no intention of doing so.
16
@vandalfan Actually, the auto drive on Tesla DOES anticipate distracted or dozing drivers. The "hands on the steering wheel" mechanism and regular checks for the driver to make a motion with the steering wheel makes it very difficult for a driver to stay distracted. I drove my Tesla half way across the country using auto steer whenever I could, and was constantly prodded or reprimanded (the auto steer feature shuts down if you are a repeat offender) if my hands were not on the wheel. Drive this car alert and responsibly and you'll have much safer long highway trips!
5
The video included in this article, did anyone notice that the wheels on the tesla don't appear to be moving ? The wheels appear to be stock tesla wheels. odd
3
@RD The wheels look like the 19" sport wheel option for the Model 3. Wheels can look immobile or as if they are rotating backwards depending on their speed in relation to the camera's shutter rate. The reflection of the photographer's car shows their car's wheels moving. As noted, the filming was not a safe activity either.
9
Of course the videos are made as a hoax. Anyone who has driven a Tesla would know this. In the Tesla I drive on a daily basis, it is impossible to be non-interactive with the steering wheel while in autopilot for more than 30 or 60 seconds before the car flashes lights, beeps and slows down.
In the article by Mr. Baker, the author never seem to dig deeper than merely musing about whether the video is fake and anxiety it is causing.
84
Exactly - any Tesla owner knows this is a garbage story - the system does not permit hands off driving for more than a very short period, even shorter at higher speeds.
Tesla cars are much safer than traditional ones, and could be made even more so if the onboard computer could communicate with surrounding vehicles. If someone suddenly pulls in front of a Tesla, the car automatically makes room, and rear-ending the forward vehicle is near-impossible. If all cars were required to have a GPS emitter, vehicle-on-vehicle accidents would be virtually eliminated.
34
@Theodore Stone Exactly right. If more of the people who write about Tesla would make a point of actually driving the car first, they would find the experience both corrective and exhilarating.
12
@Theodore Stone
Are the forums where Tesla drivers appear to be exchanging tips for defeating the interactivity check also hoaxes, then? Should the company be taking legal action?
2
Having lived past 86 years, I have witnessed a lot of changes in the way we live - some good, some almost miraculous, and some not so good, and some really not so good.
At this point I have the strengthening conviction that at least some technology is running amok.
Some technological "advances" seem to be made just because they can - and that isn't reason enough.
Is it possible that we humans will eventually be turned into robots ourselves due to "technological advances" that relieve us of decision making?
13
@Pat Boice
Indeed, Mr. Boice, at 71 and a former High Tech Analyst,
our "Advances" are losing sight of what used to be a pearl of wisdom that now seems lost on youthful designers :
"If it ain't broke, *don't fix it !"
And the wisdom to know when it IS "broke".
We don't *need self driving vehicles that are NOT on a set of tracks, and even hi-speed trains need human supervision.
This was the wisdom of taking a "hedge" against that old evil Law Of Unintended Consequences ..... you know .... like flushing pet baby pythons down the toilets in Southern Florida many decades ago ..... "solutions" like that.
The advise "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" also served as a gentle reminder that *any good design also requires a large dollop of humility on the part of the designer, in the recognition that as long as you are *Human, you *ARE subject to the Laws of Unseen, and therefore Unintended Consequences.
"Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead" is an axiom
sometimes appropriate to war ...... but *never appropriate in Science unless an emergency *does need to be immediately "Fixed". If we can see "it" coming, only a fool waits until it IS a full blown emergency.
Not for nothing, the Corporate Motto at Zuckerberg's
shop is the fully adolescent: "Move Fast and Break Things". Pretty much explains the resulting state of much of modern Hi-Tech, doesn't it ?
22
@Pat Boice
We're already cyborgs. I can do any calculation or find any answer to any historical question or communicate with anyone by engaging my phone.
The only problem is my low-bandwidth thumbs. The sooner we implant chips into our brains and do away with phones and keyboards all together the better off we'll be.
2
Mr. Baker starts us off with a litany of what we "see" in the moving video. Perhaps more interesting is what we do *not
see. Note that, as the white car begins to pull even with the Tesla over in the fast lane, the right, rear wheel on the Tesla is NOT EVEN TURNING ! Now, note the way that, as Mr. Baker points out, the landscape is "whipping by". It certainly *seems to be. But now, look at the rotation of the wheels ON the white car being reflected in the paint job of the of the Tesla. You can *see the individual "spokes" of the slotted wheels. As we *all know, a car must be moving *very slowly for it to become *possible to see the individual spokes before the turning wheels at any significant speed become a full *blur of spinning "spokes".
Conclusion: The Tesla is stationary. The white car is moving very slowly, the "whipping background" is faked.
8
@Nominae Not necessarily. When the frame rate of the video camera is synchronized with the spin rate of the wheel, and the wheel has the appropriate number of spokes spaced around its arc, that wheel can appear to be standing still. It's been a well known phenomenon for decades, often created by using strobe lights to study objects in motion and by auto mechanics until relatively recently to set ignition timing on engines. A strobe timing light flashing each time a spark plug fires causes a pair of timing marks on the stationary engine block and the rotating crankshaft pulley to appear align with each other.
This effect can be seen in many old western TV shows and movies. A rancher rides into town on a horse drawn buckboard and as he passes the camera the wagon wheel spokes become visible or even appear to rotate backward. The wagon is changing velocity but the camera's shutter speed remains constant and causes the illusion.
The reflected car doesn't have spoked wheels like the Tesla so the stopped motion effect doesn't occur.
16
@Nominae Um, no. Those wheels are turning. You're claiming all this CGI wizardry; it is much easier (and less costly, less time consuming, and more effective) to fake these videos simply by pretending to be asleep at the wheel. Yeesh.
4
This last September I had to drive for business for several hours straight, and fell asleep while I was still convinced to have my eyes wide open and alert. Then my vehicle drifted toward the left-hand side guardrail, and what woke me up was the noise and vibration of the wheel on the threaded edge of the freeway. I was lucky that that thing woke me up, and then I proceeded to an area where I could nap. But it left me wondering how many accidents happen because of that, and how many have been already prevented by self driving cars.
41
@Giovanni Ciriani Yes!
3
@Giovanni Ciriani
Yes, rumble stripes, such a great invention. I'm sure they are quite expensive to install for thousands of miles though.
2
@Giovanni Ciriani As a medical trainee, I would often have to work 24-36 hour shifts. To decrease my chances of sleeping while on the road driving home, I would take 15-20 minutes to nap after my shift, in the parked car in the garage or lot before heading out. Luck definitely played a part but I am proud to report I was never in an accident or near accident - even during inclement weather -- during my training. In contrast, I had several colleagues that did have accidents. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
So my advice to anyone is to take that 15-20 minute nap, esp. if you do not have to rush home immediately. It could save your life and others' lives.
1
These have to be fakes, or pranks. Tesla's and the owner's liability would be outrageously high if this sleeping while driving was even remotely possible.
7
I love to drive my Model 3 but don't like it to drive me.
Autopilot makes too many micro-corrections for my liking, interfering with what otherwise would be a smooth ride. I wish I had ordered the most basic model.
But amazing acceleration, braking and handling make it a gas to drive!
17
@Concerned Citizen
"Self driving cars, when and if they arrive..."
Well, they haven't arrived yet and, as anybody who has written a few lines of code should know, the first 90% -- maybe 95% -- is easy, but that last 5% can take forever.
"Human nature" is debatable. If and when we have truly self-driving cars, drivers won't have to pay attention. Until then, what we have is glorified cruise control.
The major dangers *I* see on the road are not so much snoozing as too many drivers with fast cars and bad manners, especially guys in muscle cars perhaps trying to compensate for something. Plus texting, of course.
YMMV.
12
If only these folks would dial 911 hands free. I don't think driving alongside a vehicle with a napping driver is really a great idea.
25
Nice metaphor for what is happening with social media companies.
12
Let's hope that Tesla is more prudent with its design of automated control systems than Boeing.
71
You’re joking, right? Boeing with billions of passenger miles flown over nearly a century of flight and 10s of thousands of engineers over millions of engineering hours. And a really big whiff.
Tesla’s entire culture has nothing do to with safety. I’d trust Boeing 8 days a week over Tesla to get me home safely. And I do. Regularly.
4
We used to pull this prank as thirty-something-year-old "kids." Close the eye near the window while keeping the other open and loll the head back with mouth open while people pass on the left. Never took long to get a good result.
21
@Shaun Judd , you made sure people would stare at you, worried and fearful, while they were driving? For fun? In your thirties? I'm not sure this is as great an anecdote to tell about yourself as you think it is.
54
@Shaun Judd
Indeed, you set out to *intentionally create a repeated and *successive condition of distracted driving on the part of everyone you could possibly affect ?
I would hate to hear your definition of the "good result" that it "Never took too long to get..."
Got to agree with @jb, this is one thing to have done, another thing to crow about in the comment queue of an international publication.
19
What exactly is the point of this article? The author appears to be against Tesla, Amazon, Uber, etc. I’ve owned a Tesla 3 for 15 months and can never go back to an internal combustion engine. Yes, Elon Musk tends to exaggerate but he also delivers (Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, PayPal, etc.). I find that people who criticize Tesla, like this author, have never driven a Tesla — it’s the most amazing car I’ve ever owned!
106
@Neil
Agree, absolutely. And isn't it nice that it's an American-made car? Thank you Musk.
28
I find that people who don’t criticize the car are bought into the myth and legend, more than having any speciation for good ergonomic design, an appreciation for good manufacturing practices, or an understanding of human-machine interaction design.
The electric drive aspect- awesome. The control systems and driver experience all tied to a touch pad that requires you look at it while driving- atrocious. If we had an organization that certified vehicles as safe for driver use- this car wouldn’t pass.
14
@Andrew Lee Teslas also have a tremendous amount of build quality issues. Panels that aren't correctly aligned, cheap plastic, missing basic features, and the like. They just don't build the volume of cars to control for these mistakes the way Toyota or even GM would. When the cars actually accumulate mileage, we'll see more serious issues.
3
The amazement of snoozing drivers will come to pass as self-driving cars become the standard. I imagine one day videos of someone actually steering a car will take the place of snoozing driver videos, as they will be the exception.
11
Do any of these "alert" drivers ever bother to honk their horns in an effort to wake up the sleeping motorist in the lane beside them? Or call 911?
Or are they too busy videotaping the event for posterity, a far more dangerous form of behavior if they're not in a self-driving car.
147
@ag One of the problems of beeping at drunk, sleeping, or otherwise incapacitated drivers is that they tend to swerve unexpectedly.
I was advised on one strip of highway notorious for drunken driving to drive as far away from oncoming traffic as possible.
22
@ag , the whatabout argument even here? Okay. if you're worried about drivers not tending to the road, you might speak to the fear that most of us would reasonably have: that a sleeping driver will create a disaster. Most people will not say "oh, must be one of those self-driving cars." They will assume a major hazard, and react in various ways--and usually they will be right. So yes, I'm certain they do everything you or I would do.
7
@ag One of the drivers who took the shots, wrote in his Twitter feed that he honked several times trying to wake up the driver of the Tesla (and the other passenger), but it didn't work; then decided to document it.
7
The blue Model 3 situation is very obviously (to anyone who has sat in a Tesla) fake - or at least the driver is very obviously not asleep. With the seat-back in the position it is in, there is no way the drivers head could be unconsciously at that angle due to the physical attributes of Tesla's headrests. Were he really asleep, his head would drop forward with chin to chest - or the head would loll to one side. It is also very unlikely that his hands would still be on the wheel unless wedged into the crook of the wheel spokes and that does not appear to be the case here.
19
In every case cited: Tesla, Amazon, Uber, big tech in general, the technology is extraordinary. It's the opportunism, and bad behavior that results in odious outcomes that harm people and degrade their lives. What we need is government regulation of sociopathic corporate behavior--we need it badly. And, we need it particularly in the case of 'disruptive' technologies. The people behind these efforts really did mean to disrupt--what we didn't initially understand was that they meant to disrupt our lives in ways that would deliver money, power, and lack of accountability to them, while leaving us to suffer the consequences, and clean up their messes. Well we should clean up--the only way we can is through our government, which, unlike predatory corporate behemoths, we choose through elections, however messy, and imperfect the process.
107
@john lafleur We are there today...let's implement:
MRI all kids for the absence of Empathy in the brain.
Scientists have already completed studies.
Steer, what we term psychopaths, into non-financial and non-political professions/field of study.
MRI all global leaders for the same deficit.
Replace with humans whom are not psychopaths.
9
@john lafleur We are there today...let's implement:
MRI all kids for the absence of Empathy in the brain.
Scientists have already completed studies.
Steer, what we term psychopaths, into non-financial and non-political professions/field of study.
MRI all global leaders for the same deficit.
Replace with humans whom are not psychopaths.
1
@john lafleur
We let vaping get a large foothold without regulation and look at the positive outcomes we achieved.
6
Automobiles have become extensions of our living rooms. People eat, drink, make phone calls, read, email, text, from their air-conditioned spaces at 60 or 70 mph................Who has time to be wary of others doing the same "life style" behavior ?
Basic awareness and civility is what is missing on our roadways.
13
@Tony our society's insistence on equating driving with transportation is a huge part of the issue, too. Sleeping on a train harms nobody.
30
As the article states the Autopilot may have averted a disaster, and trying to videotape while driving on Interstate is much more dangerous. Like any other technology Autopilot is great if used properly. I am confident that autonomous vehicles will be much safer than people driven. Can’t wait to get my Tesla and try it out.
30
These videos are more like pranks. The steering wheel of Tesla have pressure sensor that will warn driver if there is no pressure applied. A person will lose grip on steering if he/she really falls into sleep, Tesla will slow down and park once this happens.
36
@Yikira To be clear the pressure we apply to our Model 3 steering wheel is a bit of torque. Just gripping the wheel does nothing to let the car know you are there.
10
@Mark Schaffer If you 'lose your grip' on the wheel, it almost certainly means that the hand in question will drop from the wheel resulting in no torque input and Autosteer will eventually bring the car safely to a halt.
10
@Yikira Did you miss the bit where Tesla owners share tips on how to cheat that system?
4
These incidents have the feel of a cynical attempt at a viral campaign by Tesla itself to market it’s cars. There just have been too many videos, most of them broadcast on network television as a gee-wiz moment to round out the end of the show for it to be anything else.
8
@Rob U. Nice conspiracy theory. Come back when you realize how ridiculous it is.
14
If one can afford it, a dream for folks with mobility issues.
37