The difference is that there are no features in question that don't appear on other cars. TACC is nothing but ACC and nobody is blaming it for anything directly. People are blaming "autopilot" as a whole but it would be hard to make a case that Tesla shouldn't have ACC when so many other cars do, and have had it for over a decade. Since Tesla was explicit in statements that it may not sense certain things including those above a certain level, it's hard to say it's not working as designed. Even at that, there's a general disclaimer that active emergency braking will merely slow the car down at that speed, not stop it. Considering how many versions of ACC aren't designed to stop a car under any circumstances, Tesla could modify it by making it worse, but if they propose doing so since it would match what others are doing, they could simultaneously question how that obviously acceptable solution would make things safer. At most, they could be asked to claim it may not stop the car but they already do that.
As for auto steer, it's merely lane keeping. It's a specific form of lane keeping called lane centering and is also offered by other manufacturers. In the two recent cases in which autopilot was questioned, one kept the car perfectly on course, and the other turned out not to be on autopilot. There are a few changes Tesla could make. They could make autosteer worse and claim that it's now like lane keeping in other cars, but again the question would be why making it less accurate would be better for the driver. They could change the system so that the check for hands on the wheel remains the same, except it's also done when autopilot is off. In the latter case, it could turn it on, give the hands message, and then do what it currently does if the driver continues not to touch the steering wheel. Critics would argue that Tesla would be keeping autopilot on more, not less, but there is a compelling case that it would be safer and may have prevented the accident that turned out not to be related to autopilot being in use. Finally, they could check far more frequently whether the driver is holding the wheel. However, accidents due to inattentiveness happen all the time, and in virtually all cases, the driver's hands are on the wheel. Keeping hands on the wheel won't prevent a person from looking at the console to change the audio selection or dial a phone call or falling asleep or watching a DVD on a portable player. Having an extra distraction that does nothing but make the driver look down at messages more often won't help. The car currently goes by pressure, not touch, so I get the warning regularly anyway, When I get it, I hold the wheel more firmly and put pressure one way or the other. It doesn't make me safer and often I won't react until I hear a beep even though my hands are on the wheel.
The bottom line is that the only difference between what Tesla is doing and what others are doing is that Tesla is doing a far better job at lane centering. There's no case to be made that it should be disabled in Tesla cars but not others. There is a strong case that could be made that US trucks are inherently unsafe without any guards on the sides, as in other countries. When the story broke about the Florida accident, I was in Vietnam. I noticed that all trucks there without exception had side protection that would prevent a car from ending up under a truck. Not all were built to the same standard, but the absolute weakest standard is in the US where they aren't required at all. If Vietnam can afford it, it's hard to make a case that the US can't.
