That's funny. Are you the CEO of an auto company (serious question)?
Nope.
I ask, because at the shareholder meeting Elon said it would be 1-3 years before you could basically sleep in the car (technology wise, not legal wise). I would think if anyone had a good idea about the timeline it would be him, but I don't actually know you.
Forget about me...it sounds like you don't know Elon. I think Elon is the genius of our generation, but if he has a flaw, he is unrealistically optimistic on his timelines. If you don't know this, you don't know Elon.
It's been almost a year since the autopilot announcement and there's still no auto-steering. What on earth makes you think cars will be autonomous in a year?
In all actuality, Google's cars have the capability for the driver to sleep. But that's in certain scenarios, and it's certainly not legal. And the cars have hundreds of thousands of dollars of sensor and computing hardware onboard.
Google, Uber etc. all think driver-less cars will be here by 2020.
Technically, they might be. But the sensor/hardware suite will make them prohibitively expensive, and they sure as heck won't be legal. I think they drastically underestimate the sluggishness of the legislative branch.
I fully realize I will remain responsible for what my vehicle does until the laws catch up. I'm just looking for a car that drives as good as me on the freeway.
Well yeah, we all want that. All I'm saying is that you're not going to find it for a good while.
I'm not asking to sleep in the back. I am just asking for less attention than I already put in. Maybe I need to look up every 15 seconds or so.
There's a flaw in this statement. Going 70 mph, you travel a third of a mile in 15 seconds. A whole boatload can happen in 15 seconds and a third of a mile. If there were a system in which you didn't have to look up more frequently than 15 seconds, then you wouldn't have to monitor it at all.
Does a pilot constantly look around and check everything constantly as if he is flying the plane when it is on autopilot? Probably not.
Good question. Former Air Force pilot here, so I can provide some insight on that. No, it's not constant monitoring 100% of the time when you're on autopilot, but depending on regime of flight (low altitude maneuvering vs. high altitude cruise) a diligent pilot is aware of potential landing areas, systems performance, traffic in the area, etc.
It's true that with cruise flight under air traffic control you can somewhat relax while on autopilot, but that's an entirely different animal. You've got radar monitoring traffic around you, radio communications, lots of space, and much less spatially dense traffic. Imagine flying a jet on autopilot when there are dozens of aircraft flying around you in formation, hundreds of aircraft flying the opposite direction, skirting right by your wingtip, crossing in front of you, and thousands of stationary objects floating in the sky that you can't hit or else you'll die. That's driving. And that's why the analogy doesn't apply.
They relax and let it do their thing, knowing that if things change the system will let them know and they will take over ASAP..
That's a common misconception regarding autopilot (on aircraft). I can find many examples of dead pilots who relied on their autopilot to tell them when something was wrong.
FYI, this is only slightly less engagement than the average "texting while driving" teenage girl drives even without autopilot.
Agreed. There are a lot of dead teenage girls who were texting too.
I am imagining a system, that on the freeway, would require you to be present, but not really all that alert (assuming good weather, not a lot of merging in your lane, etc.). Seems like this should easily be possible with the current hardware.
I guess you're not an engineer? If you were you'd realize this is a far more complex system than it seems.
"Less fatigue" by having to turn the steering wheel 75% less doesn't even sound worth it to me.
You won't have to touch the steering wheel--just monitor the car.
In fact, it sounds irresponsible to release something like that to the public. I already have trouble paying attention in stop and go traffic with the current TACC.
Please be careful. If you find you can't monitor the car with TACC engaged, please don't use it.
If I have to steer significantly less, but still pay attention, that sounds worse than just being engaged with the road.
Don't use autopilot then.
FWIW, I say this having been in a 65 mph accident in a Tesla, and hopping out without so much as whiplash.
That's a bit of a selfish view though. Not sure what being lucky in an accident has to do with anything. What about the car you might rear-end at 70 mph? Would they die?
So, we aren't talking about a super high bar here. If a deer jumps in front of the car, I don't expect not to crash, just like I probably would crash even if I were in full control.
Yeah we are. Autonomous driving (even for 15 seconds) where the driver need not monitor is extraordinarily difficult, as Elon is finding out.
