BLEEDING EDGE: Tesla's Autopilot Will Definitely Save Lives After It Kills A Few Getting There

On the last day of his life, Jeremy Banner woke before dawn for his morning commute. He climbed into his red Tesla Model 3 and headed south along the fringes of the Florida Everglades. Swamps and cropland whizzed past in a green blur.

Banner tapped a lever on the steering column, and a soft chime sounded. He’d activated the most complex and controversial auto-safety feature on the market: Tesla Autopilot. It’s a computer system that performs all the functions of normal highway driving without any input from the driver. When the computer is in control, the car can speed up, change lanes, take exits, and—if it spots an obstacle ahead—hit the brakes.

PUGPROUD - 10/11/2019 12:02:51 PM

+8 Boost

"after it kills a few getting there"... great marketing slogan!

CANADIANCOMMENTS - 10/11/2019 12:34:02 PM

-4 Boost

I guess Boeing uses the same slogan?

wilfred - 10/11/2019 1:54:13 PM

+8 Boost

Tesla jokes aside, just when is NHTSA going to step in? Other manufacturers don’t seem to get that many chances.

SanJoseDriver - 10/11/2019 10:09:24 PM

-7 Boost

This is a very long article, but entirely worth a read. If we wait for Autonomous vehicles to be perfect, the cost will be many more deaths. It only needs to be at least as good as a human driver from a statistics standpoint and we'll need many billions of miles before it will become dramatically better. Tesla is up to 1.6 billion miles so far and has come a long way, but the biggest challenge is still up ahead (city driving).

SanJoseDriver - 10/13/2019 12:22:44 AM

-7 Boost

I believe highway Autopilot to be at least twice as safe. Summon I think might be somewhat similar to the average human driver at this point (which is not great). Local street Autopilot will be interesting to see.

MDarringer - 10/13/2019 11:48:14 AM

+8 Boost

If we wait until it's perfect, it will cause deaths? What twisted logic. This technology is poorly engineered and unsafe at any speed. Tesla is like Hitler. They are OK killing people to achieve their goals.

SanJoseDriver - 10/15/2019 3:21:54 AM

+1 Boost

Absolutely it will. If your changes of dying are cut by 50% using a beta product, that is still a significant reduction. Most of the deaths in Teslas are not from Autopilot, they are from people doing stupid things that Autopilot would not do.

SanJoseDriver - 10/15/2019 3:22:30 AM

+1 Boost

(ex: teenagers driving 108 MPH through a residential neighborhood... someone one even survived)