News flash - this just in: "Tesla Tells California DMV that Full Self Driving Is Not Capable of Autonomous Driving"
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/am...-self-driving/
I’m astonished that Tesla has’t been either sued by consumers, or investigated by the NHTSA, for it’s claims.
First they call their glorified cruise control “Auto Pilot”, which implies to consumers that they can sleep or have sex while the car drives itself.
Let's be real. Regardless of what the 'fine print' says, most people don't read owner's manuals. When they hear something is called "Auto Pilot", they think the car can drive itself. Because that's what they want to believe. As a result, numerous accidents have happened with people doing inappropriate things with their cars. Just peruse youtube if you want to be amused, entertained, and horrified.
Now they bring out a version called “Full Self Driving”. Except that it isn't.
The reality is that both AutoPilot, and FSD, are SAE Level
2. Not Level 5, which would be true 'full self driving'. Nor even Level 4, or Level 3. They are Level
2. Which, according to the SAE, means:
"You are driving. You must constantly supervisethese support features. You must steer, brake, or accelerate as needed to maintain safety".
I guess Tesla wasn't happy with how many people mistakenly believed their 'AutoPilot' was full self driving but it isn't, so they're revising the name to 'Full Self Driving' which also isn't any more than 'AutoPilot' wasn't.
I don't know what's more appalling. Tesla making such blatantly false and misleading claims, or that the NHTSA hasn't stopped them from doing this, or the gullibility and stupidity of Tesla buyers who believe this nonsense.
It's one thing to be a 'pioneer' and on the 'cutting edge' of developing new technologies that need to be refined and advanced, etc. etc. etc. But flagrantly lying about it to deceive people is a whole different matter. Especially when doing so can get them hurt. Or killed.
The big print giveth (misleading names) and the small print taketh away (details no one reads). But in the process, people are going to die when their not-really-self-driving car plows into something.
Someday, if the human race survives into the far future (questionable), people might look back and really call this time The Stupid Ages (for soooo many reasons). But then, as is attributed to Henry Louis Mencken, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Or the very perceptive Phineas Taylor Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”