Tesla's Autopilot is (still) worthless | Auto Expert John Cadogan

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[@martybartfast]

When I watch your videos John, sometimes I'm not that interesested in the content but I am always enthalled by your command of the English language, your keen knowledge of grammar, and your ability to be concise and succinct in getting your meaning across. I find listening to you most rewarding. I don't know if you do or have, but you should write books. Thank-you. 😀👍

[@joshuanicholson420]

Was rear ended while in a roundabout by a foreign national. A couple of highway patrol cops witnessed the accident. My car was damaged enough it had to be towed. Foreign nationals left country within 48 hours, had no insurance and cops also unable to finish their reports - I was left holding the can! Lots of issues around foreign drivers and responsibilities.

[@AutoExpertJC]

What a bastard of a situation.

[@smileyfacefrown2723]

Got an Indian dude at work, really nice guy. He was saying when he moved to Australia the Indian Consulate sorted him and his wife out with a licence. He has a full R, MC, Taxi, Forklift and MR licence. He was surprised, as he and his wife had never driven a manual car, a truck or a forklift.

[@markedward5941]

@@smileyfacefrown2723 garbage , he's lying.

[@5lcalais1]

​@@smileyfacefrown2723 in Victoria anyone who moves here from another country who has a license in their country of origin only has to transfer it to a Victorian license, they pay a transfer fee + license fee, do an eye test and boom you've got an Australian license. You don't even have to be able to speak English, they'll ring a translator to interpret. It's a stupid rule tbh, every other state makes immigrants go onto their Ls and learn how to drive by Australian standards. Not in Victoria 🙄 u can thank the woke bleading heart twats for that one, it's no wonder this incident happened. Shit like this happens everyday on Melbourne roads...

[@Beej-wp6tg]

@@smileyfacefrown2723 You should seriously consider reporting this to your State's Road Authority (e.g. Vic Roads) before someone gets killed. You can remain anonymous.

[@martinburns342]

Another great video John. I had a foreign national reverse his friends' Camry uphill into the brickwall of garage under my house last Friday night. He had his international driver's licence. 1 Camry and a Triumph Tiger 900 gt pro ( my motorbike)written off and front of my house my need to be demolished. 😐

[@AutoExpertJC]

Jesus. Happy Easter...

[@batmanlives6456]

John , Your t- shirt Resistance is futile… As an electrician , loved it 😍

[@Nifteenev62]

Reminds me of the old "cruise control activated"..."I'll go make myself a cuppa".

[@timcollins380]

Even when flying a 777, the Captain is ultimately responsible for the flight path of the aircraft regardless of whether the autopilot is engaged.

[@AutoExpertJC]

And there's a lot of time, typically, from cruise to ground impact, in which to sort problems out.

[@timcollins380]

@@AutoExpertJC But your point about (general) driver inattention is well made, I see a distinct lack of situational awareness among many drivers, especially here in WA.

[@IsDonOz]

As a career military and now airline pilot I have to agree with your assessment of the Tesla “autopilot” John. Something else which is well recognised in airline flying, but seemingly doesn’t even get considered in the race to “fully autonomous driving” is the little matter of “automation complacency”. It’s very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security while flying, in my case, a Boeing 787 because the flight management systems do such a great job 99.9% of the time. The challenge is being sufficiently engaged in the task to manage the 0.1% of the time when it does something batshit crazy. This is the challenge for the electric Jesus. How to keep the driver engaged enough to be awake when the excreta hits the rotary cooling device. I’ve spent a lifetime doing this stuff and it’s a challenge for me that I acknowledge. How does someone who as just bought their new Tesla as well as buying all the spin that goes with it going to cope when the “autopilot” doesn’t do what the shiny brochure says? I suggest to you, very badly indeed.

[@bronzedivision]

Also there are many versions of autopilot and few of them work like most imagine. The most popular versions are really just cruise control for planes. The system takes off some of the pilot's work load but they're NOT flying the plane.

[@wilson2455]

recent dashcam videos demonstrated how a vehicles 'advanced safety features' nearly caused catastrophic accidents. 1. a vehicles 'Automated Emergency Braking' system decided to engage at 100km/h whilst the driver was safely merging into freeway traffic 2. another vehicles 'Lane Keep Assist' overcorrected, nearly causing a collision with a cyclist

[@richardsmith579]

Driving is a serious business. I don’t think a lot of people realise that.

[@AutoExpertJC]

Usually it's a trivial or mundane activity. People should think harder about the potential consequences.

[@sahhull]

Other than speaking to the missus, driving is the other daily life threatening activity

[@stusue9733]

@@AutoExpertJC It shouldn't be, but yes that's how most drivers see it. It's a lounge chair to sit in until they are somewhere else. Perhaps they should bring back that "crash simulator" I think the RACV used to run it. Little ramp with a car seat attached, simulated a 10kph(?) crash. Sure opened peoples eyes.

[@youxkio]

Agree, You start to wonder if FSD is really capable of what is claimed to do, when driving 8 to 12 hours a day inside a city bus.

[@rctezluh42069]

manually driven cars? lol

[@dougstubbs9637]

If you had a Time Machine, John, I suspect we wouldn’t be having Easter.

[@AutoExpertJC]

We'd still have Easter, but I'd take out the woo-woo.

[@dougstubbs9637]

@@AutoExpertJC can we have an Easter at a time it doesn’t piss down rain when we go camping ? In Elons name, Amen.

[@Fullnoise]

I remember when this happened and couldn’t believe the BS that was told about it. As an interstate truck driver of 33 years, we are 100% accountable for everything we do on the road. Make no mistake about it, this woman knew exactly what she did and used that time before she handed herself in to explore her options. Just for a quick comparison, there was a police media conference urging this woman to come forward as they already knew who they were looking for. If I had have done the same thing, the Heavy Vehicle Unit, along with various other police would have opened my office door with a sledge hammer, raided the place seizing all computers, filing cabinets and immediately defected all vehicles registered to my company and made a big song and dance about any small defect that they would have found. I’d also be locked up. Can someone please remind me about male privilege again?

[@santouchesantouche2873]

I don't think gender has much to do with it. I'm sure you are aware of trucking companies cutting corners. Not yours of course..................

[@Fullnoise]

@@santouchesantouche2873 So you're saying that women get treated exactly the same was as men by law enforcement and in the courts hey? What's your next gag?

[@josephhalwagy6435]

well said

[@santouchesantouche2873]

@@Fullnoise I'm saying it's a non sequitur. Gender matters not in these cases. The woman was charged. there is a trial. what more do you want to make it seem fair to you? death penalty? Meanwhile, how many instances of trucking companies are there where corners are cut and tragedies happened? there is no correlation.

[@Fullnoise]

@@santouchesantouche2873 Cool story bro, needs more dragons. Non sequitur, really? Perhaps you should do a little research on the penalties handed out to females for the same offences that men commit and get back to me. Just to save you 10 minutes on Google, I’ll tell that they get significantly lower sentences for just about everything they do. As for your problem with the trucking industry, you should probably seek some professional help for that. All I said about the trucking industry is that we are 100% accountable for our actions. While you’re at it, how do you think this would have turned out if the genders were reversed? Link below as KZbin keeps deleting it.

[@daviddaw999]

John, I comment as a former instructor at a world-famous Police driving school here in the UK, and as a former Fatal Collision Investigator with the same Police Force. I have been very sceptical of any and all autonomous driving systems since they appeared. The standard they hope to achieve (and not improve upon) is that of an ordinary, average driver. My Police career's experience taught me that that is actually pitifully poor. Surely the aim of any autonomous system should be to be better than the very best human? Until Mr Musk, or some other maker, for example produces a system that enables his vehicles to pass through a World Rally stage faster than the Championship's best drivers are able to do, then I have no faith at all in such systems. On another subject, the onus is on the visiting driver to inform themselves of any unusual regulations in the country in which they find themselves driving. It is nothing to do with the State to inform them; nor should it ever be. I cannot imagine that any country's laws say that it is acceptable to leave the scene of a crash without first stopping. If Ms Agrewal thinks that being a visitor to Australia (or any other country) means that she is not going to have adhere to the rules, then she is in for a big surprise. She is an idiot on two counts: firstly for trusting Tesla's piss-poor system, and secondly for leaving the crash. I hope that justice is done.

[@rogerpearson9081]

Some foreign nationals think they are above laws as they are in their own countries.. I agree 100% with your comment about the mediocre driving standard. I see so much poor driving nowadays it is the main reason crashes happen. The bar should be raised but not holding my breath given the influx of third world unlicensed and inexperienced drivers into the transport industry. You can't mention it without being branded racist. I can't be bothered. Just survive another 4 years to retirement.

[@trevorchapman1694]

If you're not going to take full control of your car and enjoy the experience of driving, you should catch a bus or a taxi.

[@AutoExpertJC]

You'll also be responsible for the consequences of any deficiency in the auto systems.

[@josephhalwagy6435]

well said

[@BradGryphonn]

We drive tonne-plus killing machines, and as such, we need to strive to have 100% attention on the operation of said killing machine. I'm old school to the point where I was averse to using 'Cruise Control' back in the day when it was relatively new. I prefer to be in full control. I drive with at the very least, my driver's side window down so I can hear what's happening around me. And mirrors are my friends.

[@AutoExpertJC]

It's hard to teach diligence mate.

[@Humongous_Pig_Benis]

Just one regard about having your side window open while driving. If you're driving on urban slow traffic that's ok, but when going faster the turbulent wind noise can impair your hearing ability from that side. In trucking, that's a professional health issue. A friend of mine recommended me to open the opposite side window instead.

[@BradGryphonn]

@@Humongous_Pig_Benis I generally cracked it about halfway. Yeah, that wind noise can be bad. Internal engine noise is an issue too.

[@petesmitt]

@@Humongous_Pig_Benis Bingo; I do just that.. crack the opposite window a bit and keep the driver window closed; nice n quiet and much better for security as well.

[@gasgas2689]

When my dad taught me to drive he said "you know why you have to have a licence to drive? It is because it is potentially a lethal weapon". I never forgot that

[@David-nx2vm]

When I transferred to a foreign country in the military, we always had to go through local conditions training before being issued a driving permit. Laws, signage/signals, parking rules, customs, etc. not perfect but better than nothing. But, to get an International Driving Permit, it’s just $15 and two passport photos at the AAA and you’re good to go almost everywhere in the world, no questions asked at the rental counter. I always thought that was crazy.

[@petesmitt]

It is outrageous but countries want visitors that spend money, so if the odd local gets cleaned up by some tourist driving on the wrong side of the road, that's just hard cheddar..

[@davidvanderklauw]

​@@petesmitt If you vote Liberal or Labor it is YOUR policy too (so don't complain).

[@robames1293]

@@davidvanderklauw Bullshit-----so what do you do, not vote all and that cures the problem? Who do you vote for, a national socialist party so you can complain?

[@stevee8318]

It boggles my mind that they haven't been sued into oblivion for calling it "auto pilot" and "full self driving" when it's clearly none of those things.

[@AutoExpertJC]

I agree - talk about misrepresentative...

[@davidbrayshaw3529]

America!

[@ecchioni]

They did in EU, there the Electric Fraudster is forbidden to call his cruise control an auto pilot.

[@AutoExpertJC]

Good on them.

[@coweatsman]

Elon "Teflon" Musk. You can't commit blasphemy against our lord and saviour, Electric Jesus.

[@GraemeHart8888]

I have an EJ mobile. The autopilot has a bunch of disclaimers when you first turn it on. Basically it's designed for roads like motorways. It's rooly, rooly good on the Brisbane motorways, which is where it's designed to be used but you still need to supervise it. On the sort of road where you're going to encounter a tram it's a white knuckle ride because it's rubbish in that environment and shouldn't be used.

[@robames1293]

I think you have nailed the problem. A long term owner will understand where to use the auto system and where it is useless. A person with little or no experience seeing this feature and giving it a go without the "training" in it's foibles leads to a bad day for someone.

[@tomnewham1269]

@@robames1293agree. Airline pilots are trained how to use auto pilot but drivers who drive an semi autonomous vehicle are not. Most drivers don’t even read the cars manual so how are they going to know how to use a complicated system such as autopilot.

[@k53847]

A 737 on autopilot will happily fly you into the ground or a mountain or into another aircraft. it's up to the pilots to properly program it and avoid it doing bad things. It may warn you that something bad is about to happen, but it's up to the pilots to monitor the flight. A whole lot of crashes are due to the pilots getting startled by something happening when they were not paying attention.

[@erikz1337]

That happened in Greece when the pressurisation of the aircraft failed

[@sixstringedthing]

Good analogy, mostly. A whole lot of crashes are due to the pilots assuming that the autopilot is doing what it's meant to be doing when it isn't, either due to missed input/switch errors or an actual malfunction, and then getting startled when they realise that the autopilot is happily flying them to their death... by which time physics usually dictates that it's far too late to do anything about it. The tragic thing about deaths/injuries involving Tesla's Pretend Autopilot is that they happen on the ground at (comparatively) far slower speeds and after an endless string of opportunities to simply turn it off and start paying proper attention to the road again, all of which make such incidents inherently avoidable. As opposed to the sort of highly specific combinations of error/failure/inattention that are typically required to cause a 737 to fly into a mountain.

[@kardy12]

@@erikz1337Except that’s not quite what happened. The pilots and passengers on board were incapacitated by the depressurisation, and the autopilot kept the plane in the air in a pre-programmed loop near the destination airport until it ran out of fuel.

[@andrewmoorhouse687]

Very good report JC with an important message; pay attention when driving. Personally I remain to be convinced by many of these so called assistance systems, certainly I’d never 100% rely on them. One example with my current car is that it has speed limit recognition and it displays it on the dash. It’s rarely 100% accurate in any single journey. Extrapolate that across many systems the car is doing for you and the consequences are obvious. Sure human drivers make mistakes, but to think computers don’t get it wrong some of the time is misguided.

[@rogerpearson9081]

But computers are infallible. Just ask the pilots whose plane stalled because the infallible computer had bad information from a seized angle of attack sensor. For hilarity,my friend photographed his truck mounted GPS showing him in the ocean presumably at the map datum point. Too many numpty managers think that because it is on a computer screen it must be accurate all the time with no understanding of limitations. Blind faith in flawed systems will be our downfall.

[@jeremyashford2115]

My wife took exception to an overtake I made last week and I pointed out to her that the car had made no complaint, whereas during a previous innocuous incident it had nearly stood on its head braking in error. Not a Tesla, just a bit of driver assist on a Suzuki Turbo. I’d rather drive a car that did what it is told, as I would rather use any machine that did what it is told, but such things are getting much harder to find.

[@KC-lz9qg]

Totally agree. Had to turn off the lane keep assist in my Subi. It was like having a back seat driver who actualy touched the steering wheel!! Gave me a freaking heart attack every time it did it.

[@walterrwrush]

Good thing the car recorded everything so people can't lie

[@nettlesoup]

Thank you John for the public information about drivers being in control and staying attentive regardless of driver aids in use. I use Autopilot for 90% of my motorway driving and that's really where it's supposed to be used. Drivers fall asleep or have medical emergencies on the motorway every day while not using driver assistance and there are already several examples of Autopilot and similar systems saving potentially fatal crashes by bringing their car to a stop with hazard lights flashing. Still, I don't put my trust in Autopilot. I'm fully alert and if I'm getting tired I pull over and take a break. For advanced drivers who wish to test Autopilot out on main roads, understand that it's not designed for complex city interactions. It's purely for staying between the lane markings and speeding up/slowing down in traffic. If you agree to those terms and are ready to take over at all times, go for it. Even FSD, which is designed for city streets, is still in Beta in North America. Whilst it's showing amazing progress, even most of the people testing it think it's at least a year away from removing the "driver aid" moniker and being ready for the driver to read a book or whatever. While EJ would admit he was naiive about the remaining work (he's stopped giving predictions in the past year) it's still the right methodology to my engineering brain.

[@AutoExpertJC]

I agree that Autopilot might be a real asset if you lapse into a diabetic coma at 110km/h...

[@thefleecer3673]

Just for a second there i thought you weren't going to say "Electric Jesús" thankyou for not disappointing me!!!🤣😅🤣

[@coweatsman]

I was watching a Louis Rossman YT video commenting on Testla's employees spying randomly on customers using cameras on their cars in compromising positions and sharing with others.

[@petesmitt]

same thing is possible with any 'smart' camera equipped technology..

[@grantleyhughes]

Car manufacturers are not doing the right thing for concentration by gluing an ipad to the middle of the dashboard.

[@AutoExpertJC]

Correct. Easy to goof off with CarPlay or A. Auto...

[@petesmitt]

I fkn hate the things.. much prefer mechanical controls that are easily intuitive to use safely.

[@TheDeadfast]

Not to mention they're downright forcing you to use it in order to operate basic functionality of the vehicle such as the AC. Functionality that used to be operated by physical buttons you didn't really need to look at to use. Tesla is a particularly egregious example of this, they've even removed the gear shifter!

[@dyemanoz]

@@TheDeadfast They haven't removed the gear shifter - they've put in back on the steering wheel column where it belongs 🙂

[@grahamstrouse1165]

@@AutoExpertJCThe positioning of the damn thing is distraction enough, especially if you have to rely on it for persistent visual inputs.

[@petesmitt]

Reminds me of the old clown some time ago in the US who bought himself a flash RV with newfangled cruise-control, which he'd never experienced before; driving along the highway in his flash chariot, he engaged the cruise-control, which he thought gave the RV self-driving capability and went to the back to make himself a cuppa; the cops managed to work this out when they found the wreckage with his corpse inside..

[@TheNanoNinja]

Something I have been discussing lately. There are housing developments in Australia that are approximately 50 years old. where the roads and pedestrian paths are separate networks. It's difficult to describe, but when you see it, it makes sense. Basically, walk out the front of the house, all normal, roads and car ports but no foot path. Walk out the back, pedestrian and cycle paths and not cars.Pedestrian underpasses means that at no point are pedestrians and vehicle are on separate networks that are layered over each other. But at no point does a pedestrian have to ever cross the road, within that estate. I get it would be hard to retrofit any suburb, but newer estates should consider this model in new estates. The estate I have seen, isn't a bunch of derelict lane-ways covered in graffiti. Open parks and common areas and a reasonably desirable area.

[@DeepCreekTV]

Hahaha always funny viewing when you mention EV and EM together...... laughing at, not with 😊 Knowledge is learnt through fuck ups but as usual you let the Strawman run freeee! Hahaha... Always funny as fuck🎉

[@karltattersall5508]

"The sh!t sandwich is mainly going to be sh!t." 😂

[@bogdan78pop]

I love you mention Hitch...!!!! I miss someone like him in the media nowadays..!!!

[@ctruong183]

Well presented John, as always. I like your comment at the end about you as the driver being responsible for your action. In the aviation world, there is a phrase 'Who is flying the plane, the pilot (human) or the autopilot (computer)?' Finally the question to the driver is that why did she use the shitbox autopilot in the urban road?

[@evfusion4094]

Sadly idiots abound. But Tesla's claim is pretty clear: Autopilot is " ... intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous."

[@AutoExpertJC]

The name if the system is wholly misrepresentative of what it does, and the EU concurs.

[@DvApps]

​@@AutoExpertJC does the name matter when the car nags you every 10-15 second to keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road?

[@lindseyhatfield9017]

75% of the EV crashes using some form of auto pilot were teslas, yet 85% of the EV's on the road in the US are Teslas, so they are actually under represented. And most were not using "Full Self Driving Beta" but their adaptive cruise control. In FSD Beta there is currently 1 accident (causing air bag deployment) every 3.2 Million Miles travelled. Really, thats not too bad, compared to human drivers.

[@davidknott9951]

Nicely put Mr C. I believe there should be a Royal commission to look at the licensing procedures. Driving is a culture. Work needs to be done for cultures to work together.

[@Steve-ho5zj]

Not allowed to pass a stopped tram in Melbourne.

[@Fwdking]

Sorry John , I got held up at the Hyatt . Lmfao

[@markjwilcox]

I don’t even like using cruise control in my car, thinking of the extra millisecond or so that it could take to respond to, for example, a burst tyre. That extra time could be the difference between stopping relatively safely as you automatically move your foot from accelerator to the brake or the car being thrown in the direction of a wall or a tree without slowing down as it’s happily travelling at its set speed. Maybe I’m just old fashioned but the person behind the steering wheel should always be the one manually putting inputs into the car, not some ludicrous computer.

[@seanhamilton4175]

The car can respond much faster than you

[@kerrynball2734]

I'm also confused why a 15" touchscreen is not considered a distraction similar to a phone......

[@petesmitt]

here's the thing; mounting a phone in front of a driver is just as legal as a vehicle touchscreen..

[@TheDeadfast]

There was a court case in Germany where a Tesla driver got his licence suspended for using a mobile device after crashing while trying to adjust his wiper controls which are on the touchscreen. Because Tesla.

[@YOUSADSACK]

Tesla can call it what it likes. Pro tip - it's made very clear in all correspondence that you are responsible at all times.

[@ianbird4737]

Remember back in the day when the very first installations of cruise control were called auto-pilot in the U.S.?

[@kevinbarry71]

I don't know about Australia, but I can tell you that in New York State leaving the scene of an accident such as that is a felony in and of itself

[@AutoExpertJC]

Not sure it's a crime here (not a lawyer). Certainly it's an offense, but might be a traffic infringement.

[@kevinbarry71]

That law was passed because people were having accidents while drunk, leaving the scene, and then turning themselves in when they were sober. This way you don't escape

[@petesmitt]

@@AutoExpertJC It's most definitely a criminal offense. Under section 146 Road Transport Act 2013 (NSW), a person who drives a vehicle on a road that gets involved in an impact causing either injury or death to another person will be guilty of an offence if the person either knows or ought reasonably to know that the vehicle has been involved in an impact causing such harm or death, and where the person fails to stop and give assistance that may be necessary and that’s in the person’s power to give. For first-time offenders, the maximum penalty is a $3,300 fine or 18 months in jail or both. With this is also an automatic driver disqualification period of 3 years or a minimum of 12 months at the court’s discretion. For a second or subsequent offender, the maximum penalties reach up to two years in jail or a 5,500 fine or both. A driver will also face up to a 5-year of driver’s licence disqualification or a minimum of 2 years, at the court’s discretion.

[@lewlewis6511]

The more automated alleged safety/control systems fitted the more people rely on them, switching off levels of concentration and their own responsibility because, well, the vehicle does it for me. Adaptive cruise takes away responsibility for judging your own distance from the vehicle in front, to the point people actually rely on it to brake for them. My own bugbear is AEBS, something that can't be switched off in my MAN truck (not as i would, leaving oneself open to finger pointing without defence), i've had to adapt driving to prevent the system braking for no reason whatsoever in chicane type scenarios, having to exaggerate a route through obstacles instead of going smoothly through. We've already got roads full of people vegetating behind the wheel increasingly leaving the car to do the driving for them, a few moments spent checking out the wording in the handbook or drivers manual for the vehicle should remind them that they the driver is, and always will be, responsible for what happens, that is clearly stated in the driver's manuals i've read.

[@nettlesoup]

Exactly right. I've always thought that the only way to have AEB that works *with* the driver in all situations is if the car actually knows how to drive perfectly well, it's just watching while the driver is in control. Slaloming past parked vehicles is one thing a car with FSD will understand. Being able to judge the dynamic situation requires full understanding of the road, vehicles and pedestrians, and their likely future projected paths.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

There’s a substantial body of evidence that suggests that when we rely excessively on this kind of technological it tends to dull our reactions and response time when we do have to respond to novel inputs. There is sweet spot & it varies from person to person but if we’re 1) unable to respond to something surprising effectively because our senses are dulled or we just plain screw up & 2) we cause an accident we’re responsible for our actions. This should not be controversial.

[@billowink6821]

Not entirely correct regarding crash with injuries. If stopping to render assistance creates a greater hazard, then leaving the immediate area is advised. Two examples: Crash in super fog. Crash on ice. Huge pile-ups are made worse by not using reasonable caution. I had two vehicles spin in, around and in front of me when we approached a snow squall segment. They were racing with each other. One spun 180 onto the right shoulder, the other half spun onto the shoulder then half spun again into the medial guard rolling into a crumpled ripped entrapment. I kept my semi rolling away since it would have been a solid object on solid ice. I called EMS during that mile or two. Thankfully the camera recorded everything. We sent the state police the video, no liability or infraction.

[@jaredscott4829]

Autopilot in the context of Aircraft is a pretty basic system and actually aligns quite well with what Tesla offer in their vehicles. The issue is some fairly ignorant people think Autopilot in both aircraft and Tesla vehicles is something far more sophisticated than what it is. The arguments made are highly disingenuous, driving down the highway with ADAS engaged isn't the scenario in which this pedestrian was hit a seriously injured. It happened on a suburban street where there it would be near impossible to actually disengage from the task of driving. The 2016 crash has no legal responsibility attributable to Tesla. The NTSB found the Truck driver was on drugs and failed to yield, the car driver wasn't paying attention to the road and the Tesla system at that time wasn't designed to mitigate a crash from a crossing vehicle. The probable cause section makes no claims that Tesla was in any way at partial fault, media outlets cast that aspersion, wrongly. They also found no ADAS system by any manufacturer at the time was designed for mitigating the type of crash that occurred. The use of the NHTSA report into autonomous crashes is also laughable. They require self reporting from the manufacturer and they also acknowledge many manufacturers don't have the data reporting protocols in the vehicles to actually allow them to do it. They also openly state that the data isn't normalised and open to misinterpretation. Typically enjoy your videos, but this one smacks of bias and seems hastily thrown together for a quick buck.

[@johnpublicprofile6261]

THE CRASH DRIVER - NOW BLAMES TRAM DRIVER Who seems to have been speeding; did a hit and run; Did not surrender till 3 hours later, presumably only once she saw it was pointless to hide; Has an already suspended license; Says she thought that >she< had time to slow down for the tram; Now is blaming the tram driver. I don't think we can put much credibility in any statements from this driver. So like most media storms about drivers blaming Tesla Autopilot/FSD, it will very probably turn out that Autopilot was not engaged. NB: I am not disagreeing with all your points, just debating the validity of the case at the core of your article.

[@benhockley]

If you're saying "Tesla Autopilot is useless", then you can't actually know what it is. It's adaptive cruise control combined with one of the better lane keeping systems, and isn't an added extra like "Enhanced Autopilot" or the "Full Self Driving" pack, which certainly aren't worth the money at this time.

[@deankdx]

imagine if everyone involved in an accident needed to be retested to keep their license. I'd expect that would make a difference, people might avoid crashing their 5 star safe car more often with that risk.

[@Mrfeid]

I’ve just returned from a shopping trip to IKEA Canberra. There was a new, cherry red Tesla model 3 waiting in the drop off zone, it’s left blinker insouciantly winking for minutes, proudly bearing the following legend on a prominently displayed bumper sticker, “I’m probably not driving.” Says it all really!

[@mikeandhev]

I bet that the blinker fluid level was low as well 😀

[@gasgas2689]

I believe that in the case of the first person to be killed by an automobile, the driver was drunk. In court, he said "Well I was drunk, your honour". Your Honour said " Well that explains it then, that's quite reasonable".

[@petesmitt]

Almost as good as 'the sun was in my eyes'.. this classic has allowed people to get off for killing cyclists.

[@chrisnewman7281]

Judging by the number of dead animals on our country roads, I suspect that most people aren’t paying attention to much of anything on the road

[@AutoExpertJC]

Many people are crap drivers also.

[@danielstapler4315]

Possums wait on the side of the road (safe) and blinded by the headlights, at the last moment as the car is close they are no longer blinded and now they run in front of the car. They wait until the car is really close and THEN they run in front of it!

[@kerrynball2734]

When Skippy jumps out from behind a tree in the middle of the night and is inside your braking distance what do you think the options are ?. Especially if he jumps right on your bonnet ?

[@petesmitt]

@@kerrynball2734 exactly.. such a dumb comment; I had a kanga jump from the bush in the daylight right in front; hit the picks but no distance available to stop, so skip embedded my radiator..

[@nigelcox1451]

There was a guy here in the UK who used to put regular videos on KZbin, driving his Teslas. Every update to the self-drive system gave him a headline for his next video, but every one showed how he had to intervene very frequently. Rarely did more than 2 minutes elapse between interventions. I've no idea if he's still posting, I got bored with them, all being the same really.

[@avid6186]

I've always wondered why that started with cars. Surely there are better things to start with. Like trains? Once you have driverless trains have a look at ships. After ships, planes and finally cars. Agricultural tractors, mining trucks etc in the mix somewhere. But cars should be last as they operate in the most unpredictable environment. They are the ones that will be the most technically difficult to automate.

[@robames1293]

Well said

[@avid6186]

@Retired Bore yes undoubtedly correct. Our farm is just the opposite, small, hilly, creeks, swamps, you would be lucky if 50% is tractor country. Some places I go are fine, but move over a couple of feet and you are in trouble. Would be a nightmare for an autopilot set up. But yes those big flat farms are a very good place to start. The reason I started with trains is I see them as simplest. Start, stop and speed, that's about it. Everything has to look out for, give way to, the train, not the other way round as they can't stop quickly even if they need to. Cars operate in an extremely complex environment that we tend to overlook due to familiarity.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

Fly-by-wire technology has been used on planes for decades. Still have to have a pilot, though…

[@avid6186]

@@grahamstrouse1165 fly by wire is an electric connection between the controls and the parts being controlled as apposed to a mechanical linkage. This is not autopilot, although it probably makes adding autopilot easier to add. Autopilot is the system used to make the plane fly in the right direction, at the right hight and correct speed without constant input from the pilot. According to an airline pilot who gave a talk at a flyin we attended a few years ago, planes are basically ready to not have a pilot, usually. People definitely aren't ready to accept this yet though.

[@pinkdispatcher]

Pilot and aviation accident analyst here: actually, an aircraft autopilot is almost exactly the same as Tesla's "autopilot". It automates some functions, but not all, and needs to be closely monitored at all times. The pilots must always be ready to take over and fly the rest of the way manually. Unlike the "fly-by-wire" system, which translates inputs from either the human pilot or the autopilot into flight control surface actuations to make the plane do what was commanded, and which are among the most reliable software systems ever created, the autopilot is not required to be particularly reliable, and is expected, just as it says in the Tesla manuals, "do do the wrong thing at the worst possible time." Autopilots don't fly the plane, they just make it easier to do routine tasks, such as follow a set of waypoints, maintain a comfortable climb, and hold altitude.

[@johannl555]

We barely inform Australian license holders of their responsibilities, not to mention the variations introduced by different states. It’s virtually impossible to properly inform foreign nationals, not to mention language barriers.

[@utorrent01]

Even without navigate on autopilot on city streets available yet. Having used Autopilot FSD CONSISTENTLY for 3 months straight on Model Y, I find interrupting less than 2% of the time duration. Commute has become much less stressful for sure - going straight, changing lanes with minimum interruption, pushing down the stock to tell it to go / no go. Overall 98% of the time (duration), it drives by itself.

[@Blanchy10]

It was probably eight years ago I was howled down as a luddite for suggesting that this tech had a very long way to go before it could be trusted..

[@AutoExpertJC]

It's not likely to be deployed, fully functional, any time soon.

[@josephj6521]

I agree. It’s not years away. It’s decades away.

[@doctormario9973]

Still remember story about dude in USA in motor home when turn "cruise control " to make coffee. Ended..... vary bumpy Guess we never learn as society

[@adsconlabouring]

Love your work John, well said.maybe that's why the electric Jesus is building a rocket to ascape all his charges lol

[@AutoExpertJC]

He'll mess up if he gets to Mars. It's how he rolls.

[@adsconlabouring]

Nice

[@soundman6645]

As somebody, who on an irregular bassis, drives long distances up to 10 or 12 hours ( sound fatigue management practices employed) in a day, cruise controll is a wonderfull thing, BUT, I don't trust it, ( no matter how clever) as far as I could comforatbly spit a rat.

[@jeremyashford2115]

This is Agrawal v Musk 2, number one being the battle for control of twitter. I had never heard the name Agrawal before.

[@oby-1607]

Carrying on about an auto-pilot car hitting a pedestrian is sort of throwing a rock at a glass window. That statement is basically saying no driver has ever hit a pedestrian, car or tree that walked in front of them. Drivers do this every day and there is no headlines about this because it isn't sensational. Well, we gotta start somewhere. They used to mount horse heads on horseless carriages because horses would rear up and panic when meeting one without a horse head on the front. Women were known to faint as well. Its easy to be caustic about something that obviously needs more work in perfection but I will take a driverless car any day when perfected than dealing with drunk, opiod-high, angry, sleep deprived, in a hurry or someone thinking what is on their phone is more important than the road in front of them. Remember, I said when it is perfected and we have to start somewhere instead of throwing rocks.

[@grogboggoth]

So refreshing to hear someone who understands the difference between inference and implication and thus uses the word "inferring" correctly (kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqWtZIOsrJaXj5Y). A small thing, for sure, but I hear the word misused so often that this almost made my day.

[@mickdalrymple6425]

Autopilot function in a car is akin to an aircraft using indicators or lane keeping before they roll left or right while flying.

[@alexsimmons1803]

Well said John. I would however be curious to learn of the crash/death/injury rate (normalised per million km or per million hours of driving) for vehicles with and without these driving assistance systems. I've no idea if such reliable data exists but it might help to assess the impact of what we don't have numbers on, and that's how many more or fewer crashes/deaths/injuries are avoided by such driving assistance systems.

[@evfusion4094]

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates one automobile crash every 652,000 miles driven. Teslas not using Autopilot technology logged one crash for every 1.7 million miles driven (in part this may reflect safer vehicles, the demographics of Tesla drivers and the age of the Tesla fleet). Tesla drivers without Autopilot engaged are more than twice as safe as the average American motorist. If Autopilot is used they are ten times safer. On average, semi-automated driver assist packages save lives. They help when drivers loose attention, have micro-sleeps. or suffer medical emergencies (lost consciousness). It would be interesting to see data for other driver assist packages. They too probably result in much safer driving.

[@CYBRUTE]

@@evfusion4094 good to see someone here is posting factual information.

[@sixstringedthing]

@@evfusion4094 "Ten times safer" compared to what? The "in part this may reflect" bit is doing a LOT of heavy lifting in your comment mate. Tesla owners are extremely likely to be affluent, middle-aged or older, and driving a vehicle which is less than five years old and has been properly maintained according to the service schedule (hence they benefit from everything that this implies regarding standard active and passive safety features which aren't autopilot, and whether or not they're actually working properly). All of those factors are going to skew the numbers heavily in Tesla's favour compared to the millions of people driving around in crusty old body-on-frame yank tanks with bald tyres, shockingly poor brakes and zero safety features. The numbers will also be skewed (but to a lesser degree) with regard to the "average" vehicle which isn't in as poor condition as what I just described, cars in the 20-25 year old age range. None of this changes the fact that a Tesla is a much safer vehicle than many out on the roads, but I take issue with terms like "twice as safe" or "ten times safer" when they're based on poor methodology.

[@medhurstt]

@@sixstringedthing "I take issue with terms like "twice as safe" or "ten times safer" when they're based on poor methodology." Almost no auto accidents are due to breakages, the vast, vast majority are due to the driver being stupid or inattentive. Auto pilot may not be perfect but at least it doesn't suffer from either of those and its improving over time. The incident Cogan was looking at was from a version of the software from over a year ago.

[@russellchristison8425]

Interesting point but nearly impossible for statistics on accidents avoided, if your vehicle’s stability control stops you sliding off a wet road into a tree you may not even realise it activated and your day has continued on without incident

[@melaniewalker9303]

It would be great if you could do a video for L and P plate drivers, highlighting these key safety messages in your engaging way.

[@timmak1914]

I do not see the problem with calling it autopilot. Commercial airline Autopilots have a pilot flying, watching out the windshield ready to take over, the other pilot is constantly checking what the autopilot is doing speed, fuel consumption, altitude, and waypoints. Remember the 737 Max, autopilot killed all those people because they did not keep the autopilot off. So just because a land-based system messes up and the driver does not take back control is not a system issue it's a driver issue.

[@timoleary8751]

The irony of how far we've come making cars safer, yet allowing such a function to operate in a registrable vehicle. Mind boggling.

[@whya2ndaccount]

This is up there with the story about the person who left the driver's seat of their moving Winnebago to make a cup of coffee because the "cruise control" was on.

[@StuFletch68]

Touch your phone while using auto pilot next to the highway patrol, that will give you a pretty good indication on where the law stands with auto pilot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@AutoExpertJC]

Or get tanked and get Autopilot to drive you home.

[@StuFletch68]

@@AutoExpertJC I was thinking less Barbwire for a test case.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

What worries me is the mix of International License and relying on Sat Nav ( i have my suspcions) . Seeing a lot of drivers changing direction , and that includes finding a street on dual carriage , at last minute in front of me. Or parking over a yellow line next to a round a bout prohibiting Buses to weave pass and blocking all traffic for miles

[@wilson2455]

recent dashcam videos demonstrated how a vehicles 'advanced safety features' nearly caused catastrophic accidents. 1. a vehicles 'Automated Emergency Braking' system decided to engage at 100km/h whilst the driver was merging into freeway traffic 2. another vehicles 'Lane Keep Assist' overcorrected, nearly causing a collision with a cyclist as for foreign nationals, it's the old farts with diminished cognitive/physical abilities that scare me. How the hell do you mistake a fat horizontal brake pedal for a thinner vertical accelerator pedal?

[@233kosta]

In the case of the 777, the control logic is a whoooooooole lot simpler than any car (despite the added degrees of freedom), simply because there's no computer vision involved. That makes it a lot more effective. That said though, the human pilots are still overall in charge of the aircraft, thus fully responsible and accountable for the safety of the flight.

[@mrfreddyfudpucker2185]

In relation to an "autopilot" generally... In a 777 the autopilot features will maintain the plane in appropriate parameters of power, airspeed, elevation, angle of attack (by control of power and pitch), direction/heading (by control of roll) based on either a set of fixed waypoints, intertial reference, interception of radiolocation signals, or pilot input (heading, altitude etc). Sometimes mutually coordinated instructions (TCAS RA). Sure, the plane can land itself if the approach is programmed into the FMC and the conditions are just right for a CatIII Autoland. But once you touch down, you're on your own! The airspace is basically empty, safety is built in, and the tolerances are pretty large. It has no capability to avoid obstacles (be it weather, a hang glider or a flock of geese) per se, and the automation of "see and avoid" relies on all other aircraft having operable compatible technology. It just does what it's told for the most part, and traffic using this technology is separated by at least 300m vertically and 3km lead/follow. By contrast, in cars it's much more complex because of ground routing, intersections, traffic rerouting, obstacles, all cues being visual and all other things not advising their position or state. Road camber and corner apex is much harder to get right than level flight in air. Getting a car to stop "most of the time" for a pedestrian is a pretty impressive feat, and I'm not surprised it doesn't work out live up to the hype. I'm yet to see a horse or bicycle fitted with a transponder broadcasting its live position. Having said that, I think that electric Jesus and his cult of admirers really shouldn't have even tried to sell that half-baked snake oil when anyone with a rational brain and an understanding of "how things work could" see that this is how it would end up. But just as an autopilot is not the same as an autohelm, applying the term "autopilot" to any level of autonomous driving cars is a nonsense. Disclaimer: never flown a real 777 except in a simulator.

[@tjroelsma]

And EJ made Tesla's system even worse by eliminating the Lidar from their system, arguing that Tesla's recognising software is só good, that is doesn't need Lidar anymore. That argument was immediately shown to be total BS when Tesla's Autopilot "saw" a truck that had jackknifed and flipped over, blocking both lanes of the highway, failed to recognise it as a truck or a non-avoidable obstacle and therefore couldn't decide what to do until it slammed on the brakes way too late. The ideal setup for a self-driving system would be to have lidar detecting obstacles far ahead in front of the car, determining their size and use a camera to determine what the obstacle is/might be in order to refine the decision matrix. Lidar not only can determine obstacles from a far greater distance than a camera, but it also can determine how wide that obstacle is, in other words: is there room for the car to avoid crashing into it. The second thing lidar does much better than a camera, is determine how much time there is left for the vehicle to hit the obstacle, putting more urgency on the decision matrix and probably a higher inclination to "stop in case of doubt".

[@medhurstt]

@@tjroelsma Tesla didn't eliminate lidar, they never had it. Lidar's primary purpose is to locate the car very precisely in its predefined high definition map. The car then drives according to that map. Lidars secondary purpose it to identify objects and mainly precise distances to the objects but its not as good as cameras for actually identifying them. The identified objects become obstacles in its high definition map to be avoided by its software. Really Tesla and Lidar equipped vehicles are completely different in how they drive. Tesla is much closer to driving like you and I do it, whereas say, a Waymo, is much closer to how a car in a computer game drives. Cameras are sufficient for driving. We can be 100% certain of that because its all we have, and we drive just fine with that information.

[@tjroelsma]

@@medhurstt I should have explained this better: when the engineers developed Autopilot, they were convinced that a combination of LiDar and cameras would be the best combination of sensors for an autonomous driving system. Their conclusion was based on the logic that LiDar should detect an obstacle in front of the vehicle, calculate its distance and size and then get extra input data from cameras to determine what that ocject might be so to better avoid crashing into it. Elon Musk, who contrary to what he likes everybody to believe is NOT an engineer, typically "knew" better: LiDar wasn't even not necessary according to him; cameras and recognition software would be far superior. What was his conclusion based on? Nobosy knows except Musk. The results thus far prove that the engineers had it right and Musk had it wrong: Tesla's Autopilot system suffers an astonishingly high number of decision-failures; situations wherein the system does see an object but fails to identify it and therefore either doesn't react at all or way too late. That same Autopilot system also suffers from ghost-objects, where the system sees something that isn't there and reacts by stopping the vehicle. I will admit that LiDar also has its share of shortcomings, but overall it is a better solution than a camera-based system. Engineers seem to agree that the combination of LiDar and cameras for an autonomous driving system seems to be the golden solution, so that looks like the way to go. The description of LiDar that you give isn't describing the capabilities of LiDar, as what you're saying LiDar does is actually being done by GPS. LiDar doesn't "know" where on the world the vehicle is and it doesn't care, as all it cares about is detecting if there are obstacles in front of the vehicle that need to be avoided. The lane-keeping part of autonomous driving and the recognition of traffic signs is being handled by cameras and knowing when to take a turn is being handled by GPS. Purely theoretically LiDar could also handle part of these tasks, but then all roads should be equipped with precisely placed markers that can be detected by LiDar and referenced to a map for positioning. Taking all this into account, the conclusion engineers have reached is that the best functioning autonomous driving system needs to have input from three sensors: GPS, LiDar and cameras.

[@medhurstt]

@@tjroelsma What you should have done was fact checked yourself. Tesla was originally based on Mobileye and mobileye never used lidar. Using Lidar is really a different way to solve autonomous driving in a very fundamental way. The high definition maps used by Lidar solutions aren't scalable and are much too limiting. In both solutions GPS is used to broadly position the car geographically, but lidar is used to precisely position the car within its high definition map. Then the other sensors note differences (potential obstacles) between the high definition map and its lidar mapped view of where they are in the map and the software deals with them. By comparison Tesla deals with every moment of driving as if it'd never seen it the road in front of it before and calculates what it needs to do from scratch. Tesla's problem is much bigger hence why they seem to be slower getting it to work but on the other hand its a general solution which is why lidar solutions only work in a couple of suburbs whereas Tesla works globally.

[@tjroelsma]

@@medhurstt LiDar is a form of radar, so how in your opinion would LiDar be able to "position" a vehicle on a map? The principle of radar/LiDar works on bouncing a signal back from on object (pinging), so I see now technical way to do that and know where you are without fixed reference points that can be pinged. As to Tesla never having used it: you may be right there, but I can't imagine any engineer that knows his business won't have thought to use LiDar for autonomous driving, because it's the most logical sensor for it. Your last part doesn't make much sense to me, as I've already explained that LiDar, just like radar, doesn't give a hoot where it is; it just scans for objects within its range. So there ARE no position related issues to LiDar, nor are there position related advantages to Autopilot. The camera system Tesla uses also doesn't care where on earth it is, it just looks for objects in front of it. They've invented GPS to do just that, so why reinvent the wheel? Now you can program a camera-based system easier with reference points that it can recognise to detect a crossing. Cameras can also easily be used for lane-assist and that's where the necessity of backing up LiDar with cameras comes from. Tesla has a much harder time getting their system to work properly because it depends on cameras to do the detecting of objects and software to determine what object it has detected. Contrary to LiDar, a camera suffers from weather influences and lighting to detect what's ahead, so that's a big problem. Preferring cameras over LiDar or the combination of LiDar and cameras is yet again an issue of Elon Musk versus the rest of the world and a case of Musk "always knowing better" when engineers use actual facts and logic to determine what sensors to use.

[@alanbrown2455]

Having flown a 737 with an auto flight system it is a crew's responsibility to monitor its performance during flight. Anyone not performing the same rigor in a car is asking for trouble. Calling it an autopilot is not the problem but relying on these systems in an environment infinitely more complex than flying is foolish indeed

[@AutoExpertJC]

I agree with that - the problem with the name is the implied false representation of what the system is capable of. And, as you said, things go wrong fast in a car.

[@Equiluxe1]

The German government told Tesla that they could not call it auto pilot and must call it driver assist.

[@214lilley]

Thanks for your video, as always an interesting watch. Early in the video (5:13) you refer to the Tesla Model 3 as an "Elon Musk sh!t box". It would be fantastic if you reviewed a Tesla Model 3 or Y as so many are being bought these days, and tell us why you think they are a "sh!t box". I know your love of Electric Jesus is not exceptionally high, and neither is mine. But a review explaining your hate of Tesla cars, and their flaws would be brilliant. Cheers.

[@richardlove4287]

There are over 15000 Tesla vehicles in Australia, 98% are still on the road…only 2% got home!

[@stephenmurray2054]

Love your work! When are you installing the bin cam ? 😅

[@jonpav6224]

From what I understand they only rely on cameras, there isn't multiple layers of error checking / redundancy or alternative sensors in their automation. A driver isn't trained in depth, as to what will happen if the system fails and how it will fail (failure modes).

[@mitchtoeroek2085]

So many comments on here as usual from people who refuse to use cruise control, drive with a window cracked, have never used driver assists, scared of change. You do some great videos but you definitely have a demographic of followers. ‘Autopilot’ is a clever marketing name. I have had many cars with assists. Some are better than others. ‘Autopilot’ is an assist at this stage and as an ‘assist’ is an excellent tool. One must always be paying attention whilst driving a car. As with a new tech one must be attentive and cautious while using. I have been driving a Tesla with the standard autopilot for months. It does have some odd habits, once worked out and used correctly it is in my opinion 100% safer than a vehicle without. The fact you think these safety systems are useless is absurd.

[@PhilRable]

Is it just me but, regardless of what your call Tesla’s driving systems, who in their right mind would use these systems (including cruise control) in a built up area which would be where Trams run down the middle of the street?

[@AutoExpertJC]

You're over-estimating the median level of responsibility among affluent dickheads.

[@petesmitt]

If you find that scary, consider that trucking companies are importing Indians to pilot B-double trucks..

[@bourbonslurpee]

I've had a few very close calls getting off trams in Melbourne. Take a second to look too your left when getting off a tram. Arguing your right of way from under a tesla is a bad way to start your day.

[@limewhite71]

In NSW, practically all that is needed is your licence from your own country of origin, in English or a translation in English. No, there is no education about the law or driving. They can just drive.

[@AutoExpertJC]

Still, that was me every time I drive in any other country, ever.

[@limewhite71]

@AutoExpertJC Exactly... Not necessarily a good thing!

[@andyteitge6079]

Thank you, John - another excellent report. Sadly, until they stop giving licences out in cerial packets along with all of the other 'entitlements' and start teaching ' responsibilities,' nothing will change.

[@xntumrfo9ivrnwf]

The only feature that I'd actually like in my car is cruise control, so I don't need to keep fluffing the accelerator for an hour as I'm driving on the highway. However I believe that has nothing to do with Tesla, and is technology that is present in most modern cars (but not my 15 year old s**tbox)

[@BradGryphonn]

Thanks to you, my old engineer mate, I always refer to Elon as #ElectricJesus in social media nowadays. It is a most brilliant description of his mythological cult following.

[@AutoExpertJC]

It's who he is, for sure. There are two Jesuses these days - the religious one and the electric one. And they both respond equally to prayers - go figure.

[@csjrogerson2377]

@@AutoExpertJC Neither of them respond to prayers. One doesn't exist and the other is incapable.

[@meatgeorge]

There is an autonomous way to get between Sydney and Canberra. It's called Murray's Coaches. I guess Sydneysiders would like to have the car as Canberra public transport is a joke. But driving in Sydney is a hard no for me.

[@henvan8737]

Auto Pilot maybe misnamed but it is clear in the vehicle documentation when it should be used. The driver clearly did not check when and how to use it. Its no different compared to using cruse control in any vehicle on roads such as a built up area next to trams. So now she needs to front up to her mistake.

[@rjbiker66]

Why couldn't the Tesla "see" the woman and brake. Teslas are fitted with AEB with pedestrian detection

[@davidstokes6079]

Why would anyone trust a car being autonomous especially when driver aids such as active braking are so unreliable. My company has Mercedes Benz trucks and I turn the active braking off due to false warnings when no hazard is present. It was reported on MMM's night shift program of a NSW ambulance of a Mercedes Benz Spinter leaving the road when active braking came on with no hazard in front of it.

[@shellez101]

Is it actually called auto pilot ? Does it say in the owner’s manual how to use it properly? I drive a John Deere Tractor on the road for a living and it has a Owner’s Manual, SOPs and SWMS which you must read and sign for before getting the keys .

[@daxnet6583]

Amen! and chapeau bas for mentioning Chris Hitchens, unforgettable champion of rational thoughts

[@newson7248]

I wonder if there is anything in the owners contract about liability, when it comes to 'auto pilot' ballsing up. My current vehicle has 'adaptive cruise control' and i had to sign a waver, stating that i understood that the car didn't drive itself.

[@MrForbesy]

I remember the European visitors who put cruise control on in their hire camper…..then popped in the back to boil the kettle or make a sandwich and ended up in a paddock. Common sense isn’t all that common. I’m looking at an EV,solely for the tax benefits, but don’t hold any faith in all brands of any level of semi-autonomous driving. Always the nut behind the wheel that’s responsible 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@jeremyashford2115]

To paraphrase, full autonomy will arrive when the polar icecaps melt.

[@marklittle3551]

No sympathy for a driver that flees the scene. Throw the book at them and they can contemplate their immorality in prison. You would have to be an absolute idiot to rely on autopilot in a suburban setting imo.

[@seancurtin5131]

John, apologies if I missed the episode but where do you get your groovy science T shirts from? Thank you for your great information as always.

[@laurencedalmas3132]

Can't agree more , people are relying on these "automatic " gadgets always more and people are now depending on them like smartphones, most people don't even know how to drive with out them.

[@maifantasia3650]

That's why a manual transmission is fast becoming an anti-theft device.

[@Upintheya]

So how about we educate the local citizenry on expectations during a crash. Abandoning the scene of a crash is not exclusive to foreign nationals. Wasn't that long ago when a local Porsche driver took pics of injured police and took off.

[@nikolasb2933]

The day the fully fail safe autonomous driving system is successfully implemented that's the same day the steering wheel gets deleted from the options list permanently.

[@sking2173]

So never, then …

[@Jack66840]

The Good Wife is my autopilot, even though she's often a tad late. i.e. "you should've turned left back at the last set of lights".

[@vernonhampton6973]

Trains and trams are literally on rails (that under normal operating parameters cannot deviate onto a roadway or leave the rail path its on) and even THEY have operators maintaining control at all times...

[@AutoExpertJC]

We have an automated train line in Sydney...

[@vernonhampton6973]

@@AutoExpertJC REALLY? (Man, I swear - you learn something every day...)

[@ivanolsen8596]

@@vernonhampton6973 Got on a train under HongKong Airport. No driver AND no bloody wheels. very few seats. and if you werent hanging on when it took off. youd be arse up on the floor!

[@vernonhampton6973]

@@ivanolsen8596 ...and I'd STILL trust that over Tesla's autopilot...

[@ivanolsen8596]

@@vernonhampton6973 Apparently very reliable, runs 24/7 always fully loaded/ carrying passengers from the extremities to customs and the exits. Very scary on your first trip, but you get used to it!

[@allanriches9381]

A driver of any vehicle has to be in control of the said vehicle at all times whilst driving

[@AutoExpertJC]

They're certainly accountable.