I guess I wasn't clear about the accident I saw. I was reading my book, the car was driving on autopilot. The car slowed pretty hard - that's normal for Houston traffic, but I always look up when it does. At that point I saw the accident happen in the lane to my left, not my lane. And as soon as they hit each other I put my foot on the brake and that gave me control of the car. There was nowhere I could go, though. I was in the middle lane. Couldn't go left or I'd join the accident. Couldn't go right as the freeway was full, cars in all three lanes. So, staying in my lane was all I could do. I didn't know where the cars were going to go and I didn't want to get involved, but I was also afraid of braking too hard and getting rear-ended myself, so I braked but not foot all the way to the floor. I wasn't trying to stop, just put a little distance between me and the cars bouncing around in the left lane. Anyway, because I slowed I ended up going through the mess they made in the road - glass and metal everywhere. That's what got my right rear tire. Nothing was autopilots fault, and I never said it was. Not sure how that got interpreted that way, but sorry if I wasn't clear.
I made my original post talking about the accident because I thought it showed a good response by autopilot, whatever you think of how I was driving my car. The car didn't swerve or do anything crazy, and slowed down as it should because the cars in front of me were slowing down. And the car gave me control back as soon as I hit the brake, so there was a smooth transition from autopilot to human control in an emergency situation, and it was seamless. I liked that and was very happy with how the car behaved.
But I'm by no means the only person disappointed with autopilot - you've all read the forum. Many people are also delighted with it. Its just not what I was expecting, and maybe that's my fault, but maybe Tesla over-sold it too. I think they did.
Tesla itself has emphasized this is beta software - a clear indication they don't think its good enough yet either. I'm hoping for a massive improvement in the software over the next year. In the meantime I'm using it as I want - its my car, my decision. I don't use it on back roads, or even 290 or other roads in Houston that aren't wide lanes and well marked. The beltway is the perfect place for it. So far its doing pretty well on the beltway. I wouldn't use it the way I am if I thought I was going to die, or kill someone else. Don't have a death wish at all. But I bought a car that Tesla said would steer itself, and I'm going to let it do that.
The Model S will control the brakes, acceleration, and steering, so the driver doesn't have to. Call that whatever you want. To me, its the same thing no matter what name you put on it. In court, if Tesla tries to argue "our car was in control of brakes, acceleration and steering at the time of the accident, but we're not responsible", well no judge or jury will buy it. But maybe I'm wrong. I think we're going to find out sooner or later.
