[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

You make the point yourself and then you subtly distort mine. My point is that use case matters. If you base your conclusion on a comparison of AP's performance on the highway with the performance of human drivers in ALL driving cases, that is a cheat. I'm not saying people are better on the highway than AP. They are probably not. AP appears, for the most part, to fall asleep less often. But that is not my point. My problem with their numbers is that to claim AP is 10 times safer than human drivers based on the comparison they did is a lie. a LIE. I really don't like cheating. Nor lying. Nor those who practice either. Particularly when it come to safety.

I suggest that this discussion illustrates the point well. Based on observed behavior, some people, perhaps even you, seem to have bought Tesla's specious safety claims. That appears to have encouraged some of those humans to do REALLY stupid things behind the wheel. I never said human drivers are better than AP/FSD or that AP/FSD is worse than humans. I said, and say, that the data don't support the claims some make for it. And that, making those claim as fact has really pernicious consequences.

Edit: as to the vehicle fire issue - that is a different conflagration. All I can say for sure is that my son, who commands ARFF operations at a midsized airport, seems leery of LI battery fires because they are difficult to put out.

I don't think you mean to say it is a lie. The data Tesla is providing are statistics. They can be interpreted in different ways. As far as I can tell, Tesla didn't state the car is 10x safer with Autopilot; that was what some articles said and that was what people like me quoting those articles said when I quoted those articles. I've admitted that the numbers aren't likely an apples to apples comparison, but I've also said that they are not suggestive of the opposite, which is what people are suggesting here, that Autopilot/FSD is more dangerous than the average driver. What people here are claiming is baseless because they are providing zero data when making these claims, and the only data we have from Tesla suggests Autopilot is safer. You called me a "cool aide fueled Musk fanboi", criticizing my analysis, while not criticizing everyone else for making baseless claims that Autopilot is more dangerous than drivers. That seems biased. Then you went on a Musk name-calling rant, which also suggests you might be biased.

But the numbers are misleading. Autopilot is used mainly for highway driving, which is generally twice as safe as driving on city streets, according to the Department of Transportation. Fewer crashes may occur with Autopilot merely because it is typically used in safer situations.

From: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/t...fety-data.html

Looking at Tesla's fine print, they state that the data they provided is conservative:

To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed. (Our crash statistics are not based on sample data sets or estimates.) In practice, this correlates to nearly any crash at about 12 mph (20 kph) or above, depending on the crash forces generated. We do not differentiate based on the type of crash or fault (For example, more than 35% of all Autopilot crashes occur when the Tesla vehicle is rear-ended by another vehicle). In this way, we are confident that the statistics we share unquestionably show the benefits of Autopilot.

From: https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

This is in contrast to the national data, which is likely an underreporting:

Two factors complicate the national crash data. First, states have different requirements concerning what incidents are reported as crashes. Second, many crashes go unreported. Estimates of unreported rates of crashes have ranged from as little as 15.4 percent to as much as 59.7 percent (Blincoe et al., 2015; M. Davis & Co, 2015). The result is that the current national crash rate is essentially a low estimate of the actual crash rate.

From: https://featured.vtti.vt.edu/2016/01...-city-streets/

Unless Tesla outright lied about the data, the data suggests that a Tesla with its normal driver safety aids is safer than the national average (some of which also include these similar aids from other manufactures, so that only betters Tesla's position relative to cars without driver aids). Even if highway driving is twice as safe as city driving like the NYT article stated, there is no way to tease out highway miles from the national average and not have Autopilot still being magnitudes safer. It very well could be 10x safer. We don't know.

If anyone is suggesting Autopilot is more dangerous or that fires are happening more often than the national averages then I would love to see their data sets, so we can have a real debate. Yes, BEV fires consume more water and are more difficult to put out, but the incidence of fires is blown up in the media.

Lastly, you say:

I suggest that this discussion illustrates the point well. Based on observed behavior, some people, perhaps even you, seem to have bought Tesla's specious safety claims. That appears to have encouraged some of those humans to do REALLY stupid things behind the wheel.

To review, the claim from Tesla is that using Autopilot (a level 2 autonomy system that requires driver engagement) is safer than not using Autopilot. Yes, people probably believe this. I too think it is highly likely that it is safer, so I'm assuming others do too. Some people might think the opposite, that it is more dangerous, but people know it is more dangerous to speed, drive too close and change lanes aggressively, and they still do those things, so I don't know what conclusions we can draw based solely on human behavior or use and purchase of the Autopilot and FSD systems, respectively. Perhaps everyone thinks it is more dangerous; isn't that what the media seems to be suggesting all the time? The safety of Autopilot and FSD may have absolutely zero influence on people doing "REALLY stupid things behind the wheel", and it could have everything to do with the capabilities; it isn't that people feel safe to use the system contrary to how they should, but rather, they can use the system that way. You are assuming the people who jump in the back seat of a Tesla during Autopilot/FSD and who take a quick TikTok video, or whatever stupid thing they are doing, are doing it because they believe they can do it safely. This is a huge assumption on your part. People do all sorts of stupid things in cars and on motorcycles that have the capabilities, but that increase the risk of morbidity and mortality. In fact, it is far more likely people post these stupid stunts because they know they are risky and inherently not safe like stunting a motorcycle on the highway or driving a Hellcat at 190mph. If it was safe, and they believed it to be safe, then what is the big deal?