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‘Boycott Tesla’ ads to air during Super Bowl — “Tesla dances away from liability in Autopilot crashes by pointing to a note buried deep in the owner’s manual, that says Autopilot is only safe on fr... (www.washingtonpost.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -15 points 9 months ago (12 children)

I have a Tesla, they make it extremely clear that you are never supposed to touch autopilot under any circumstances, and you have to go way out of your way to prevent it from disengaging while you're not paying attention.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (7 children)

When I was looking to buy a new car back in early 2019, I walked into a showroom for a final test drive before I threw some money down for a Model 3.

It started to rain pretty hard on the return drive back. When executing an auto lane change, the sensors freaked out because of the water interference and they violently yanked the car back into the origin lane halfway through the lane change. It hydroplaned a hair and scared this shit out of my wife and I. The Telsa employee assured us “it’s ok, this is normal.” Hearing that was normal was not comforting.

Upon returning to the showroom, a different model 3 in the parking lot started backing toward a small child. My wife saw what was happening, threw herself in front of the car, and that caused it to halt.

I’m sure the software has progressed in the past 5 years, but suffice to say, we changed our minds on the car at that time. Those two incidents within 15 minutes really made us question how that shit was legal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

That's the thing, it's only legal in the US (as far as I know, at least). In Germany you're only allowed to use self-driving if your hands are on the steering wheel at all times and you can take over if something goes wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure that is also the case in the US. These incidents are either caused by some sort of defeat device (I have seen weights that wrap around the steering wheel, no idea if they work), or people who have just gotten good at resting a hand on the wheel and not paying attention I think