+1
IMHO, a useless accessory.
I am the active component that pilots my cars. I can't ever imagine a machine ever having the perception of the human pilot.
Yep, there are individuals that may find cruise control an aid for their physical limitations.
Yep, drivers do make mistakes and if the car can alert the driver of a pending situation with a heads up display it might be of some assistance rather than just another distraction.
But the opposite is true too. In situations where it prevents an accident, there will be no mention in any newspaper or statistic in any database. It's not necessarily the case that it saves a driver who wasn't paying attention. It might save a driver who was paying complete attention since it can do things faster than are humanly possible.
Getting back on topic, it's clear from the user manual that Tesla said it may not detect stopped cars, shouldn't be relied on, etc. There's no reason to sue anybody unless you make some sort of claim and they deny responsibility. So even if Tesla were wrong, it still wouldn't make sense to sue them here. Nevertheless, Tesla does want the vehicle to work in this scenario. They don't guarantee it, but I'm sure they are more than interested in what happened. With the latest maintenance release of 6.2, the car has gotten much better at detecting stopped vehicles. I've always made a point to assure that the CC symbol was blue and not gray before the car got anywhere near rear ending anybody, and it's gotten much better at that. It doesn't mean I will stop paying attention.
Nobody here can say what Tesla will or won't do. It can range from them saying sorry but it's your fault, to them saying that they will give you a new car but it's your fault and you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and a statement denying any responsibility on their part. Or it could be anything in between. That's a very broad range. In theory it could be broader but I doubt that Tesla would sue you so I'll leave it at that. I hope Tesla does as much as possible to help you and it will be a long time before they tell customers that they are offering autonomous vehicles rather than autopilot.
Now getting back off topic, there was a time I was using ACC in another vehicle. There were two cars in the next lane over. One was reckless and tailgating the other within a few feet. The lead car wanted to get out of the way and change lanes in front of me when it was safe to do so. I had no way of knowing what either car would do, but the lead car started to change lanes when it was a bit more than a car length ahead of me. Just as it was about to change lanes (presumably right after the lead driver checked his mirror and saw that he was clear) the reckless driver decided to cut me off within a couple of feet of my bumper and then speed up. Since the car that was in front of it had already determined that it was safe to change lanes, it did exactly that. But by that time, its rear bumper was about three feet behind the front bumper of the car that had just cut me off, and that car was likely in its blind spot when it started moving. So that car slammed on its brakes full force within a fraction of a second of cutting me off at highway speed. My car applied its brakes immediately, tightened the seat belts, and pre-pressurized the master cylinder so that by the time my foot got there I was pressing a rock hard pedal.
The typical human reaction time to that sort of event is about a second. Since the car that cut me off left me with a following distance of perhaps a 20th of a second, it would not have been humanly possible to get my foot from the gas pedal to the brake pedal, which also takes about a second. The car avoided an accident and it had nothing to do with me being inattentive. It was at a high speed and I could have been killed if not for the car's actions. I'm also pretty sure that the car changed lanes without signalling, but even if it had, chances are my A pillar would have blocked it from view. I most likely assumed that it wouldn't change lanes since the vehicle in front was signalling a lane change, but since it had been tailgating so closely, it might have been unable to see anything on the vehicle in front of it short of the rear window. Perhaps my foot was even moving toward the brakes already. I don't quite remember but I know the car reacted before my foot could get there.
That's why I was hesitant to even consider the MS until it had autopilot. It has nothing to do with relying on safety features. I don't rely on airbags to save me and use that as a justification to crash my car. Safety features are there for the worst case scenario. Convenience features such as typical use of TACC are helpful, can double as safety features in moments of distraction or in situations like mine, but if you rely on them when common sense tells you to use the brakes, that's not a reasonable use of technology.
As for McDonald's that's a completely different story. If you read all the facts, it's far from frivolous even though it seems that way on the surface. This incident wouldn't stand a chance in court since Tesla made it clear from the beginning what to expect.
