Crashes have surged in the past four years, reflecting the hazards associated with increasingly widespread use of Tesla’s futuristic driver-assistance tech.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that cars operating in Tesla’s Autopilot mode are safer than those piloted solely by human drivers, citing crash rates when the modes of driving are compared. He has pushed the carmaker to develop and deploy features programmed to maneuver the roads, arguing that the technology will usher in a safer, virtually accident-free future. While it’s impossible to say how many crashes may have been averted, the data shows clear flaws in the technology being tested in real time on America’s highways.

  • 0x815@feddit.deOP
    81·
    2 years ago

    @BlameThePeacock @tango_octogono Fair, and in principle I agree. But it’s not (only) the people who miss the point and set an impossible standard but foremost Mr Elon Musk himself. He has been promoting Tesla’s autopilot and even its self-driving capability for years (although the folks at Tesla will certainly know that the latter won’t come anytime soon).

    Tesla video promoting self-driving was staged, engineer testifies

    A 2016 video that Tesla (TSLA.O) used to promote its self-driving technology was staged to show capabilities like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light that the system did not have, according to testimony by a senior engineer.

    One of the things we needed for setting reasonable expectations regarding this tech is more reliable information also from Tesla and its CEO. As long as the company itself is frequently flooding the market with unrealistic “news” about this tech, it is good that there are independent investigations imo.