I'm having a hard time recalling when Musk ever said that the Autopilot feature was 100% safe to use. I do recall Tesla and Musk saying this is beta software and is constantly being improved by data the car sends back to HQ for processing and learning.
People that buy snow tires don't automagically drive better in the snow, nor should they be doing 100mph in in-climate weather. The snow tires offer more grip where an all season or summer tire might not.
Using Autopilot won't make you a better driver nor prevent accidents (not now anyways) - use it when conditions allow, but be aware, at any given time, crap happens (ie: when even snow tires can't get you out of a snow bank) and the driver should be alert and attentive to if and when that does happen.
If this post is regarding the death involving Autopilot (which I think it is), I don't think there will be enough data to say 1 way or another wether the driver put his hands on the wheel or not, if the software failed or not or if the driver ignored the warnings and it's on him. Are there sensors in the steering wheel that Tesla might have recorded and can say, yes, the car notified the driver to resume control and we never sensed touch on the wheel?
If nothing else, what comes of this might be an overly cautious car; erroring on the side of, as soon as the driver is notified to resume control, if that doesn't happen in x seconds, begin a chain reaction to pull the car over to the side of the road and come to a complete stop.
IMO, https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/tragic-loss definitely contains some spin, certainly where it compares Tesla autopilot with the worldwide safety record ("Worldwide, there is a fatality approximately every 60 million miles"), and neglects the fact that autopilot only works on the safest roads.
Western Europe has about half the traffic deaths per capita and per mile as the Americas, but by looking at the world, adding for example Africa with over ten times the number of deaths per capita or per km, that text manages to avoid telling that.
Many, many traffic deaths occur on roads in third-world countries where, likely, statistically few Tesla cars have been and even fewer have seen autopilot used.
In addition, Elon's text forgets to mention that cars that are newer or more expensive tend to be safer. Many of the cars involved in deadly crashes in the third world won't have working airbags, for example.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 18.2 ms ] threadPeople that buy snow tires don't automagically drive better in the snow, nor should they be doing 100mph in in-climate weather. The snow tires offer more grip where an all season or summer tire might not.
Using Autopilot won't make you a better driver nor prevent accidents (not now anyways) - use it when conditions allow, but be aware, at any given time, crap happens (ie: when even snow tires can't get you out of a snow bank) and the driver should be alert and attentive to if and when that does happen.
If this post is regarding the death involving Autopilot (which I think it is), I don't think there will be enough data to say 1 way or another wether the driver put his hands on the wheel or not, if the software failed or not or if the driver ignored the warnings and it's on him. Are there sensors in the steering wheel that Tesla might have recorded and can say, yes, the car notified the driver to resume control and we never sensed touch on the wheel?
If nothing else, what comes of this might be an overly cautious car; erroring on the side of, as soon as the driver is notified to resume control, if that doesn't happen in x seconds, begin a chain reaction to pull the car over to the side of the road and come to a complete stop.
Western Europe has about half the traffic deaths per capita and per mile as the Americas, but by looking at the world, adding for example Africa with over ten times the number of deaths per capita or per km, that text manages to avoid telling that.
Many, many traffic deaths occur on roads in third-world countries where, likely, statistically few Tesla cars have been and even fewer have seen autopilot used.
In addition, Elon's text forgets to mention that cars that are newer or more expensive tend to be safer. Many of the cars involved in deadly crashes in the third world won't have working airbags, for example.