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Tesla To Further Restrict Its Autopilot Software To Prevent Accidents (electrek.co) 154

Tesla is planning to further restrict its Autopilot mode via a v8.0 software update that will make it much harder for drivers to ignore safety alerts. Tesla's Autopilot currently issues alerts on the dashboard "reading Hold Steering Wheel and the driver has to apply pressure on the wheel to make it go away," reports Electrek. "If you quickly respond to those alerts, the Autopilot's Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) do not disengage." The system will disengage if you ignore those warnings for too long. Electrek reports: "Now we learn that Tesla is about to introduce a new restriction with the upcoming v8.0 software update to give more weight to the alerts. According to sources familiar with the Autopilot program, Tesla will add a safety restriction that will result in not only the Autopilot disengaging after alerts are repeatedly ignored, but also blocking the driver from re-engaging the feature after it was automatically disengaged. The driver will not be able to reactivate the Autopilot until the car is stopped and put in 'Park.' So far, it looks like it would only affect the Autosteer feature of the Autopilot and TACC would still be available for the duration of the drive. The goal of the new restriction appears to be to encourage Tesla owners to respond to the visual alert and not to ignore them."
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Tesla To Further Restrict Its Autopilot Software To Prevent Accidents

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    • by Anonymous Coward

      Yup. Disgage and the driver not holding the wheel what can go wrong????

      Map drop the speed to 20 mph. Would be better??? ;-p

      Should pull over to the right and turn on flashers and stop. Then prevent driver from moving the car. AND CALL THE COPS.

      Is this cover in the EULS? Or the fact that software is not warranted for its attended use.

      • Pretty sure Or the fact that software is not warranted for its attended use.

        Is not the right word, but it could be intended, unintended, unattended...
      • Maybe first if Tesla changed the name to what it actually is from what it is not. It is not an auto-pilot system. Tesla just saying that "Autopilot" is just a brand name is stupid and clearly causing problems with how people expect something called "Autopilot" to work.

        Maybe call it "DriverAssist"

        • by Donwulff ( 27374 )

          Agree, that's just false advertising. Where's our flying cars?! Something called Autopilot should cause your car to take flight. On the safety issue it seems to have a perfect record, however, since I've not yet heard of any Tesla collisions with airplanes. If only airplane autopilots worked half as well!

        • by michelcolman ( 1208008 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2016 @03:53AM (#52794751)

          Yes, real autopilots automatically swerve to avoid other aircraft, and refuse to fly into terrain.

          Oh, wait, turns out they don't.

          And autoland automatically lands an aircraft right? Oh, turns out the pilots still have to extend the flaps and landing gear, put the right data into the flight management computer, select the approach mode at the correct time, and use it only on runways that are equipped with specially certified ILS Cat III transmitters. And, during the automatic approach, they have to be CONSTANTLY monitoring the system with their hands at the controls ready to initiate a go-around immediately if anything goes wrong (which does happen from time to time). And they dare to call it "autoland"!

          Yes, at sufficiently high altitude an autopilot system is hands-off because there isn't really anything you can fly into. That has nothing to do with it being an "autopilot" but simply with the environment it is in. Autopilot at low altitude during approach is hands-on. And it's perfectly safe to drive a Tesla autopilot hands-off in the middle of the Nevada salt flats.

          Next up: lawsuit against "automobile" manufacturers because the vehicles don't spontaneously move by themselves as their name implies.

          • Looks like someone is about 30 years out of date on their aircraft knowledge. Modern commercial aircraft autopilots can and on a daily basis do indeed avoid other traffic, courtesy of the TCAS system. ICAO mandates TCAS use in all aircraft carrying ten or more people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
            • Even though he's out of date with what aircraft autopilot can do, the point is that it was still called "autopilot" back before the enhancements. Over time, it got better as you pointed out. Presumably, Tesla's autopilot will get better over time too.
              • by Anonymous Coward

                Again.

                It doesn't fucking matter what the state of autopilots for jetliners was a decade ago, you insipid neckbeards. It doesn't matter what you think it means.

                Learn how language works, bitches. Words mean what the vox populi say they do.

                Autopilot means a magical wonderment that allows humans to fuck off while things fly, or drive.

                It's a shit fucking name, and your golden boy Musk, fucked the pooch when he named it.

                • That begs the question whether we could litteraly care less. Or something to that affect.

                  See how beautiful languages get if you let the idiots decide what words mean? If you change the dictionary rather than educate people?

                  By the way, do you really think people would use the system differently if it was called something like "gizmo to help you stay in lane"? People try out the system, see how well it appears to work, and then start to watch videos. The name has nothing to do with it.

                  The only difference betw

            • TCAS is a warning system. It just says "Traffic, traffic" and then, when you get closer, some instruction like "Climb! Climb!". It is then up to the pilots to actually disconnect the autopilot and initiate that climb. So no, autopilots do not avoid traffic. TCAS is completely separate from the autopilot.

              Same for terrain, you do get EGPWS warnings but again it's up to the pilot to actually disconnect the autopilot and pull up. The autopilot will happily fly right into a mountain.

      • I'm interpreting more like the car is acting like a child saying "You don't wanna play with me? Well I don't wanna play with YOU!"

        Lets hope the drivers seat has a trap door for when the car suddenly stops with autopilot, starts slowing/drifting, and the driver shits themselves.
    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Top!

  • It will be ready, one day, but people shouldn't mistake the feature with "fully autonomous driving" until then.

    • It's pretty ready now. I use it all the time and love it. Living in FL means it makes me a safer driver, not a lesser one. Our highways often have no merge lanes. The entrance ramp ends directly in the highway with no dashed line. That presents you with two choices... 1) ride the lane until it ends, and expect you or the car next to you will slam on your brakes; coin toss to who does. 2) look behind you and see if it is safe to cross across 20 feet of "don't merge" zone; risk running into the car in front
      • From how you describe it, you use it like an assistant, and not as autopilot. That's probably safe and good. But its still beta technology and it will take a lot of time until its ready.

        • What we've seen is that even this advanced system still has its limits, and there are dangers related to partial autonomous systems and the human factors elements that need to be worked on. People that use the feature and experience no issues gain confidence in its capabilities, sometimes possibly to the point of not paying proper attention, then all it takes is one scenario that they system simply cannot read correctly or is not configured to respond to correctly and something bad can happen. The solutions
        • An autopilot is an assistant. It is in airplanes, and it is in cars. Various levels of sophistication exist. The simplest airplane autopilots can only fly straight ahead at a given altitude. The most complex ones can actually land an airplane, if the pilots program it correctly and are ready with their hands on the controls to take over at any time when necessary.

          The question whether or not you have to hold the controls is dictated by the environment, not the capabilities of the device. At high altitude, su

          • On airplanes it works much better with autopilots than on the ground. The difference is: if the next thing you could crash into is minutes of even falling away, then you can actually let go off the controls and rely on the autopilot. Its much different for cars. Here the deadly stuff is much closer, and thus the time the driver has to react to an alert from the autopilot is smaller.

          • That doesn't mean it shouldn't be called an autopilot. Ask any actual pilot.

            The fact that "autopilot" is a highly misleading name for the feature on an aircraft doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it as an equally misleading name for a feature on a car.

      • by kriston ( 7886 )

        Umm, what? Turn your head. And position your mirrors so you have to lean your head to see the side of your car.

        Traffic is never so dense you can't force yourself in if you just turn your head to look.

        I drive a truck with limited visibility in heavy Washington DC and New York City traffic. I don't understand how people have so much trouble turning their heads.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      It will be ready, one day, but people shouldn't mistake the feature with "fully autonomous driving" until then.

      It's more "ready" than human beings are, in many different driving scenarios. Don't be deluded into thinking blocking autopilot activation blocks accidents.

      People get into accidents all the time without any help from autopilot.

      even if A-P had caused some; it's apparently safer than human drivers.

      • It's more "ready" than human beings are, in many different driving scenarios.

        But not everywhere. "ready" for me means that I can lean back and not do anything other than type in the destination and get out of the car once I am there. As long as that isn't the case, and I have to "watch out" for events that maybe happen all 20 million kilometers, then its not ready in my eyes.

        Maybe deploying the technology will help already, as it certainly is more safe than drunk drivers driving manually, but it needs to be more safe than people who drive responsibly and with attention until I would

      • It's more "ready" than human beings are, in many different driving scenarios.

        How many scenarios? The thing is that humans can deal with a much larger range of scenarios, so maybe there is a subset that the existing system handles as good or better, but nobody at this point can pinpoint an overall safety improvement. The system itself has only been exposed to limited scenarios thus far.

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          The thing is that humans can deal with a much larger range of scenarios

          Humans can often deal with scenarios.

          Humans are not very consistent, however.

          Without exception for any individual..... every human is often 'inattentive' or negligent, or become distracted, and many people also willfully disobey traffic safety rules, and fail to handle scenarios that humans would normally be capable of handling.

          This is an advantage that autopilot has out of the gate.... It's not going to miss something because it was

      • People get into accidents all the time without any help from autopilot.

        Yeah, but that's not *news*. You'll be hearing another spate of these stories once fully autonomous vehicles are on the road in significant numbers.

    • It will be ready, one day, but people shouldn't mistake the feature with "fully autonomous driving" until then.

      Yeah, there are four key steps to making the tech ready:

      1. Get it into every car by law.
      2. Lock down the media.
      3. Make people feel safe(r) with self-driving cars.
      4. Find all the political dissidents.

      These untimely crashes clearly go against step 3.

    • Yes, but it's rather a huge step back if the system determines you aren't paying attention to the road, so it stops paying attention to the road!
      Someone or something needs to be paying attention to the road, even if one of them is an incompetent waste of space, and the other a machine!
  • Misleading (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MouseR ( 3264 )

    They need to change the feature name to something that doesn't mislead the dimwits out there that it is, in fact, an "automatic pilot".

    At best, it's a co-pilot. And that would be a better name for it.

    • Re:Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @08:28PM (#52793467)

      Tesla's Autopilot functions at almost exactly the same level as an aircraft autopilot. Perhaps even better - an aircraft will not automatically detect and avoid other aircraft, only mapped obstacles. A Tesla will automatically brake for other vehicles moving into your lane.

      I do agree that "Copilot" would be a better name, but only because people are idiots, not because it's a bad name.

      • by MouseR ( 3264 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @08:40PM (#52793503) Homepage

        Planes do detect other planes in proximity with the aptly-named proximity warning. Miles in advance. With beeps buzzes and autopilot disengagement. They are called ACAS [wikipedia.org]. There are various levels of support depending on version being used by an aircraft.

        If the pilot fails to respond, there's a loud bang and a cut on his paycheck.

        • by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
          ACAS responds with autopilot disengagement, meaning fucker you need to wake up and fly now cause I could bollocks this up. Tesla autopilot actually responds to encroaching vehicles, hence it is actually better in some aspects than flight autopilot.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            ACAS responds with autopilot disengagement, meaning fucker you need to wake up and fly now cause I could bollocks this up.

            No, it most certainly does not. ACAS only gives aural warnings. First "Traffic, Traffic". Then, when you get closer, an actual command like "Climb, climb". It is then up to the pilots to disengage the autopilot (it does not disconnect by itself) and take the corrective action.

            I'm a pilot on the A320. I've also flown the 737, A330, Falcon 2000, and a few others. I don't know of any aircraft where the autopilot automatically disconnects because of an ACAS warning.

            • by Anonymous Coward

              " I don't know of any aircraft where the autopilot automatically disconnects because of an ACAS warning."

              It would be a silly thing to do. You'd be going from a potentially dangerous situation (the other plane may move out of the way), to a known dangerous situation (plane is no longer under control) without knowing how fast or even if, the human will take over.

              Hell the A380 has a mode where the autopilot will automatically follow the ACAS RA, subject to override by other sensors (eg terrain avoidance), if

        • by mysidia ( 191772 )

          If the pilot fails to respond, there's a loud bang and a cut on his paycheck.

          Actually....... the former pilot is likely awarded a massive paycheck from his life insurance company.
          Shame, that a good bit of that will wind up going to Uncle Sam, his Uncle Sam's cousin named Local State Government, and his child called Local County gov't, and the former pilot won't get to spend any of the pittance that remains himself/herself.

          • Or it will be deemed a suicide or terrorism, and the life insurance won't pay out.

            • by mysidia ( 191772 )

              Or it will be deemed a suicide or terrorism, and the life insurance won't pay out.

              Insurance adjusters are scumbags; However, pilot inattentiveness is negligence, not suicide, and is not likely to be legally ruled as such.

              If the insurance will not cover such things, then they would likely not write the insurance policy to someone employed as a pilot in the first place. (If you are a licensed pilot, your insurer does ask, And if you are flying a plane, your Life insurance is extra-expensive, by the

        • by fgouget ( 925644 )

          Planes do detect other planes in proximity with the aptly-named proximity warning. Miles in advance. With beeps buzzes and autopilot disengagement. They are called ACAS [wikipedia.org].

          Given that, to quote Wikipedia, while larger civil aircraft carry weather radar, sensitive anti-collision radar is rare in non-military aircraft, ACAS either does not detect planes that don't have a transponder, or need to rely on external systems to do so. Car autopilots can neither rely on other cars and pedestrians having transponders, nor on some central authority warning them when they're about to hit something. Thus they have to detect obstacles entirely on their own which requires a whole lot more so

      • Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @10:39PM (#52794083)

        Tesla's Autopilot functions at almost exactly the same level as an aircraft autopilot.

        Except that most of the time an aircraft on autopilot is a mile or two from ANYTHING. Including the ground. And the parts of a flight where a plane is expected to be nearer to anything the pilot is paying a LOT more attention.

        Mid-flight on a long haul, the pilot has to be there, and he has to be awake, but he can be filling out paperwork, reading aircraft manuals, checking maps, etc.

        That's NOTHING like what a tesla driver can ever do. A tesla driver needs to be paying attention the same way a pilot does during an automated landing ... the ENTIRE trip. Not only is that completely different from an aircraft pilot, its also an unreasonable / unrealistic expectation.

      • Aircraft autopilots have been able to avoid moving aircraft since at least the late 1980s, courtesy of TCAS.
      • by fgouget ( 925644 )
        A car autopilot has to be much more sophisticated than aircraft ones because pedestrians, bicycles and even other cars don't have a transponder broadcasting their position and speed at all times. Furthermore in the air there are essentially no stationary obstacles (mountains and relief don't count: they are well mapped), whereas on the ground there are tons of obstacles (from parked cars to road work, construction areas encroaching on the road, etc). Plus the pilots of other aircrafts are nowhere as crazy a
      • Tesla's Autopilot functions at almost exactly the same level as an aircraft autopilot. Perhaps even better - an aircraft will not automatically detect and avoid other aircraft, only mapped obstacles. A Tesla will automatically brake for other vehicles moving into your lane.

        I do agree that "Copilot" would be a better name, but only because people are idiots, not because it's a bad name.

        No, "autopilot" is a stupid name, both for the aircraft and car versions. The difference is that airline pilots know what the system actually does and so the name is irrelevant.

        But the average car driver is only going to think one thing when he sees "autopilot".

        It's just a typical marketing-led balls-up.

    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      At best, it's a co-pilot. And that would be a better name for it.

      Aren't co-pilots also fully licensed aircraft pilots, able to completely control and land the plane should the "real pilot" be incapacitated? That doesn't sound any better.

    • A copilot is actually a fully licenced pilot who is perfectly capable of flying and landing the aircraft without any help whatsoever. It's one of the things they have to actually demonstrate during their training, with the instructor pretending to be dead.

      An autopilot has to be told what to do and cannot even extend the landing gear by itself.

      So no, "copilot" is actually a worse name.

    • The driver will not be able to reactivate the Autopilot until the car is stopped and put in 'Park.'

      That's a really bad idea. If they really want to punish them, they should use a timer instead.

      A few years ago, a friend drove a Prius and the GPS navigation input function didn't work unless she went less than 5 miles an hour, so what my friend ended up doing was slowing down at the most inappropriate places on freeways and highways just so she could use the built-in navigation.

      No doubt, frustrated Tesla drivers will just start parking their car in the middle of the roads just so they can re-engage their au

      • That built in navigation speed restriction is in a lot of cars (though for mine it's only the text input fields). This is reasonable but only if I'm the only one in the car. If I have a passenger there is no reason they shouldn't be able to type in an address. In a perfect world they'd put a button on the passenger side door which will give 1 minute of typing function, that only activates on initial press (so that taping it down doesn't work).

      • Maybe there could be a comment in the instruction book about not stopping in traffic. People would HAVE to follow that!
    • I wonder if a drunk who tells a Tesla to drive him home (while using a pair of ViseGrips to grip the wheel) would be safer than having him drive himself.

      I suspect that the answer is yes. If so, even the present version of "autopilot" would save thousands of lives.
  • I thought autonomous cars were right around the corner! Guess not!
    • If you are right around the corner from a Tesla, the safest thing to do is cede it right of way, even if it's your turn to go. Especially if you are in a big-rig or truck.
      • What makes you think the truck had the right of way? He turned across multiple lanes just expecting cars to stop for him. Just because you're bigger doesn't mean you have the right of way.

        • I bet the guy with this head lopped off is pretty mad he broke the rules.

        • Common sense (via sense of self preservation) is that the larger vehicle always has the right of way, regardless of what the rules say. They're harder to maneuver and require more distance to stop. Or you can choose to be dead right, either way the driver of the rig / bus / truck will be fine, and likely so will the vehicle they are operating (which often isn't theirs anyway, so no skin off their back if it gets a few dings).

          • Common sense (via sense of self preservation) is that the larger vehicle always has the right of way, regardless of what the rules say. They're harder to maneuver and require more distance to stop. Or you can choose to be dead right, either way the driver of the rig / bus / truck will be fine, and likely so will the vehicle they are operating (which often isn't theirs anyway, so no skin off their back if it gets a few dings).

            It's one of the advantages of learning to ride a motorbike: they drum it into you from early on that you have to assume not only that cars/trucks don't see you, but that they're actively trying to kill you.

  • Tesla To Further Restrict Its Autopilot Software To Prevent Negative Publicity And Lawsuits

    FTFY
  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @08:26PM (#52793463)

    I'm sure we can rig up some sort of clamp that will take care of this.

    • by MouseR ( 3264 )

      I believe what is meant by "pressure on the steering wheel" is to try to steer it while AutoPilot makes you believe you're safe in it's control. Pressure here is more like "gently applying turning force" to indicate you are still holding the wheel.

      • So, if I just randomly turn the wheel left & right while watching my movie, it's all good?

        I would think after a while the autopilot would notice the driver is making things worse and post something on the dashboard screen along the lines of, "Why don't you take a nap, I can do this driving thing better by myself."

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        to try to steer it while AutoPilot makes you believe you're safe in it's control.

        If AutoPilot is engaged and I'm hanging onto the wheel, I won't be making any steering corrections. Because the car is probably holding the lane better than I can. What it might be sensing is some resistance that my hanging on is creating to its steering. So to fool it, bungee cord tied to door handle and wheel.

        A way will be figured out how to fool it. The ingenuity of stupidity [complex.com] knows no bounds.

    • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

      Yeah, but Tesla will never lose a lawsuit from someone who jury rigs a clamp to get around safety features. This puts the negligence squarely on the driver.

  • From what the summary reads it waits until it is absolutely sure that you are not holding the steering wheel... ... and then turns off the autopilot to leave you 'hands fee' careering down the highway!

    • by MouseR ( 3264 )

      It also slows down the car.

      Buzzing abound in hope that it may wake you if you fell asleep.

  • To keep people safe from abusing the control system, they are going to turn the control system off if people don't respond? I guess this will technically reduce the number of deaths attributed to autopilot. After all, DOT investigations will show that autopilot was off when the Tesla flew off the cliff.

    • by qzzpjs ( 1224510 )

      That's what I was thinking. Driver falls asleep since they don't have to pay attention as much, then it turns off and lets them drift into the oncoming lane.

      Maybe they should just shake the car left and right a bit in the lane to jolt the driver. Or hit the brakes quickly a few times.

      • It should simply park itself on the shoulder the same way you would if you had a breakdown. That's the only safe way, in the event that driver is unable to respond due to passing out or having a seizure or some such issue.

        • by oic0 ( 1864384 )
          Doubt its smart enough to not park you over the edge of something steeo, in mud, glass, etc... It follows lanes and looks at cars. Not setup for off road.
  • So the weak yellow therapy bands tied off on each side to apply light pressure both to the grip and the turns.
  • How about renaming it to something that doesn't suggest it will automatically pilot your car?
    • As mentioned over and over in this story already, it is more of an automatic pilot than the "automatic pilot" in planes that has been around for decades.
  • by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @09:44PM (#52793843)

    "The system will disengage if you ignore those warnings for too long. Electrek reports"

    So if you're not paying attention then suddenly you may go careening out of control. I'm not judging this as a good or bad solution to get the driver to participate, but it's the reality. How many people will think they can get away with this (as a couple Tesla owners already do) and then suddenly be in an accident that the autopilot could have avoided if it didn't decide to turn itself off to penalize the driver?

    In any case hopefully this works as intended and doesn't leave participating drivers in an unexpected situation.

    • Not sure if you're trolling or just displaying average ignorance from not reading the article, but if autopilot disengages the car will slow to a crawl and not go "careening out of control".
      • Not sure if you're trolling or just displaying average ignorance from not reading the article, but if autopilot disengages the car will slow to a crawl and not go "careening out of control".

        A better solution would be to pull over to the shoulder (safely changing lanes if necessary), and slow and stop there. Slowing to a crawl in traffic on a busy (but not jammed) freeway is very dangerous.

  • by kriston ( 7886 ) on Monday August 29, 2016 @10:36PM (#52794071) Homepage Journal

    Oh, so like a locomotive's dead-man's switch.

    They should call this new feature the "dead-man's switch."

    That name will fit the fate of many of their customers.

  • is that the Tesla will be running a v8.

  • ... change the stupid name.

    From www.merriam-webster.com:

    autopilot
    noun autopilot \o-t-p-lt\
    Simple Definition of autopilot

            : a device that steers a ship, aircraft, or spacecraft in place of a person

    Note the "in place of a person". Tesla autopilot is anything but actual autopilot
    Prosecute them for false advertising

    • : a device that steers a ship, aircraft, or spacecraft in place of a person

      Note the "in place of a person".

      Note also the "device that steers" (it more or less keeps a trajectory fro the plane/ship, or in the case of cars like BMW, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, etc. it keeps a lane).

      Not "device that handle entirely automatically the complete travel from point A to point B" (that would be an *AUTONOMOUS* car, like Google's, some subs in big cities, busses by other startups. Or simply horses and donkeys).

      Cars' driving assistance like Tesla's Autopilot actually behave exactly like the autopilot in a plane or on a ship. You

  • Driver inattentiveness has been a forseeable problem as cars strive to do more and more. It's good to see Tesla finally taking action but really it should haven't been necessary for someone to die to figure this out. Their self-drive mode is clearly limited and as such they must do everything they can to ensure the driver is ready to take over or veto the car in a split second.

    This isn't just Tesla's problem either but every self-drive vehicle that only offers partial automation.

  • This is nothing that can't be solved by duct taping a beer can to the steering wheel...

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