I really dislike the marketing around "autopilot." The common defense of Tesla's autopilot is that there are disclaimers, and the driver should always be at 100% attention.
Well, look at this, copied from Tesla's website:
> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars
> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. [1]
An average person is going to read this and think, "This care drives itself, and it's safer than me!" The rest of the page describes space-age features like switching lanes to get to an exit faster and self parking:
> All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go ... Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed ... and park itself.
They're selling a car that full on drives itself. This is not being sold as adaptive cruise control.
FWIW, they included a weasel phrase by saying "hardware" is there, as opposed to software, but come on! An average person is not going to understand that distinction. I think they need to dramatically scale back the hype around this feature until it actually delivers what it promises.
Edit: I'm also confused by why they need to hype up autopilot so much. They are already selling more cars than they can make, and a sexy electric car appeals to lots of people. I think it would be enough to stick with that.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
Well, look at this, copied from Tesla's website:
> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars
> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. [1]
An average person is going to read this and think, "This care drives itself, and it's safer than me!" The rest of the page describes space-age features like switching lanes to get to an exit faster and self parking:
> All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go ... Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed ... and park itself.
They're selling a car that full on drives itself. This is not being sold as adaptive cruise control.
FWIW, they included a weasel phrase by saying "hardware" is there, as opposed to software, but come on! An average person is not going to understand that distinction. I think they need to dramatically scale back the hype around this feature until it actually delivers what it promises.
Edit: I'm also confused by why they need to hype up autopilot so much. They are already selling more cars than they can make, and a sexy electric car appeals to lots of people. I think it would be enough to stick with that.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot