They forgot to remove the autopilot I did not pay for!!!

[eyespii]

Just curious why someone WOULDNT opt for eap. IMO it’s the #1 selling point of the car. Only reason I could see not wanting it would be if you don’t really drive much I guess.

 

[kev1n]

Just curious why someone WOULDNT opt for eap. IMO it’s the #1 selling point of the car. Only reason I could see not wanting it would be if you don’t really drive much I guess.

its still in beta and costs $5000, some are not as willing to take the risk or have trust in automation

plus the car is fun to drive

 

[SMAlset]

So what did you think of it? Assume you've tried it. My husband uses the TACC all the time and don't think he'd now own a car without it.

 

[whitex]

Just curious why someone WOULDNT opt for eap. IMO it’s the #1 selling point of the car. Only reason I could see not wanting it would be if you don’t really drive much I guess.

It's a Level 2 driver aid today which cannot be safely implemented (as the recent fatal accident in CA sadly illustrates). It requires more mental effort than driving yourself in order to drive safely on auto-pilot, i.e. supervise the system so it doesn't kill you or cause a non-fatal accident. Note that I underlined "safely", because it is possible to pay no attention at all, wedge an orange in a steering wheen, bag of patatos on the driver seat and nap in the back seat while doing 75mph on the highway, and actually survive. As the AP gets better, it ironically becomes more dangerous:
Robot Cars Can’t Count on Us in an Emergency
There’s growing evidence Tesla’s Autopilot handles lane dividers poorly

Also, it's unlikely that current hardware will ever reach FSD. Elon hasn't even solved simple problems like how to keep the cameras around the car clean (I know, he's been busy while living in California, didn't occur to him that it rains in some parts of the world). Other reasons below:
People who paid Tesla $3,000 for full self-driving might be out of luck

If I'm wrong and I can in fact summon my AP2.5 car from New York City to Seattle, I will write Tesla a $10K check to enable it.

 

[Canuck]

Just curious why someone WOULDNT opt for eap. IMO it’s the #1 selling point of the car. Only reason I could see not wanting it would be if you don’t really drive much I guess.

Because it can lull you into a false sense to security and then whamo!...

Plus, add two others to the fatality list. Then again, how many lives has AP saved? We'll never know -- but probably more than the lives it's cost. I just couldn't live with myself if one of them was my life (pun) --- or worse, one of my loved ones driving my Tesla.

Yes, it's the driver's fault, yada, yada, yada, but I only had an AP on a loaner for a week (right around the time of the Joshua Brown fatality) while considering whether to upgrade to get it, and quickly decided I'd wait for it on my Model 3. Now with my 3 to arrive next month, I'm concerned about my wife and kids using AP -- which they will only do after I have them watch the above video a few times so they understand its severe limitations and potential death trap (too strong? -- probably -- but he did ask).

As to it being the #1 selling point of the car -- I still really look forward to driving my 80 amp, large frunk, no-AP classic that I ordered when AP hardware was only a rumour -- and it's been one of the best purchases I've made in my life. Not everyone lives in California and drives on freeways with bumper to bumper traffic where AP is a must. Some of us love to drive but more importantly, when we don't want to drive, we don't want to have to always be alert or risk death, which is what the current AP, regardless of version, absolutely requires.

 

[whitex]

Now with my 3 to arrive next month, I'm concerned about my wife and kids using AP -- which they will only do after I have them watch the above video a few times so they understand its severe limitations and potential death trap (too strong? -- probably -- but he did ask).

Herein lies the trap - you think you can watch a video and know it. I know very well and actually understand the sources of the drawbacks of the AP, including a bunch engineering details that no video is going to impart on a non-engineer. That said, I found that even though I know I should be paying attention and how severe the consequences can be, I have caught myself paying much less attention that I should be, including one close call. This is why I simply decided not use it and definitely would not want my family to use it either. I don't want to pay for progress of AP with me or my family. Imagine if AP got so good you'd only have to intervene once every 6 months. Guaranteed the driver stops paying attention. Do you really want to gamble with your life every 6 months?

 

[Canuck]

Herein lies the trap - you think you can watch a video and know it. I know very well and actually understand the sources of the drawbacks of the AP, including a bunch engineering details that no video is going to impart on a non-engineer. That said, I found that even though I know I should be paying attention and how severe the consequences can be, I have caught myself paying much less attention that I should be, including one close call. This is why I simply decided not use it and definitely would not want my family to use it either. I don't want to pay for progress of AP with my of my family. Imagine if AP got so good you'd only have to intervene once every 6 months. Guaranteed the driver stops paying attention. Do you really want to gamble with your life every 6 months?

Good points you raise and you do have me thinking. I also got lulled into such a false sense of security after using it constantly for a week that even with it off, my brain fooled me to thinking it was on, since I just expected the car to react.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

It requires more mental effort than driving yourself in order to drive safely on auto-pilot, i.e. supervise the system so it doesn't kill you or cause a non-fatal accident

Couldn't disagree more. I've done many 400+ mile road trips with AS on almost the entire time(barring taking exits and parking and such) and remain constantly vigilant, with hands on the wheel and eyes up. Despite having to pay constant attention, I arrive feeling far more awake and alert than I used to before EAP reached this level(or even before having the Model S). Being free to pay attention to the more high-level dynamics of the road/cars around me, rather than having to do that plus constantly dealing with the minutia of keeping centered in the lane for hours straight makes the whole driving task much easier, less draining and allows me to pay more attention to the safety risks that are there.

People react differently to things, so I've been careful here to try to keep everything in 1st person. But I think giving a general proclamation that Autopilot is unsafe or requires more mental effort to be equally safe in all people is misleading an irresponsible. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, and you can say as much. But not everybody has your same experiences with it.

 

[Canuck]

But I think giving a general proclamation that Autopilot is unsafe or requires more mental effort to be equally safe in all people is misleading an irresponsible. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, and you can say as much. But not everybody has your same experiences with it.

I think that's a bit unfair to @whitex. Can you really say that you have never caught yourself paying less attention than you should be while on AP? After only a week I found that happening to me -- and it scared me. If it's never happen to you, you're a more disciplined person than me, and probably most others using AP.

In my view, the fact that a momentary lapse of attention can kill you while on AP makes me appreciate that @whitex has made his comments more objective than subjective. If they don't apply to you, fine. But to say his comments are limited to him, and as such should be said to be limited to him (and thus in first person), is not a fair objection, at least in my view.

 

[whitex]

Couldn't disagree more. I've done many 400+ mile road trips with AS on almost the entire time(barring taking exits and parking and such) and remain constantly vigilant, with hands on the wheel and eyes up.

That is exactly what I'm talking about. AP gets good enough that you can not pay as much attention for 400+ miles. The problem is when the dangerous situation occurs every 5000 miles and you've stopped paying attention. The first little while of using AP I was white-knuckling it, then came a more relaxed driving, then came situations where I realized my mind has drifted, especially in situations where you're stuck in stop-and-go traffic which after 40 minutes traffic clear and the car starts going fast and the brain has drifted not realizing the car is heading for a lane divider (more lanes is the reason traffic starts moving faster).

Being free to pay attention to the more high-level dynamics of the road/cars around me, rather than having to do that plus constantly dealing with the minutia of keeping centered in the lane [...]

That minutia of keeping in the lane is what keeps you from hitting a lane divider. If you offload it to AP and are not dealing with it yourself, then you are the mercy of that lane keeping system while you're paying attention 200ft ahead.

Being free to pay attention to the more high-level dynamics of the road/cars around me, rather than having to do that plus constantly dealing with the minutia of keeping centered in the lane for hours straight makes the whole driving task much easier, less draining and allows me to pay more attention to the safety risks that are there.

If your brain is less drained that means it's doing less, meaning you are paying less attention. I agree that if you could offload the lane keeping reliably to AP then you could claim less effort required, however you cannot because it is not 100% reliable. It's like driving with a student driver who in addition to being inexperience, occasionally has epileptic seizures. Most of the time you don't need to do anything, but have to be more vigilant than if you were just driving yourself.

People react differently to things, so I've been careful here to try to keep everything in 1st person. But I think giving a general proclamation that Autopilot is unsafe or requires more mental effort to be equally safe in all people is misleading an irresponsible. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, and you can say as much. But not everybody has your same experiences with it.

I linked to an article above why Waymo (Google) decided Level 2/3 cannot be safely implemented. That article talks about studies done by them and some universities that support their theory. So my personal experiences (first person here) match the studies with other people agree (I can't use first person here as I wasn't participating in the studies, just looking at results).

By the way, I am just sharing my own experience, opinion, and information I found from various sources. In the end, you are free to so as you wish, hopefully not endangering others while you're at it.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I think that's a bit unfair to @whitex. Can you really say that you have never caught yourself paying less attention than you should be while on AP? After only a week I found that happening to me -- and it scared me. If it's never happen to you, you're a more disciplined person than me, and probably most others using AP.

In my view, the fact that a momentary lapse of attention can kill you while on AP makes me appreciate that @whitex has made his comments more objective than subjective. If they don't apply to you, fine. But to say his comments are limited to him, and as such should be said to be limited to him (and thus in first person), is not a fair objection, at least in my view.

Not never, no. But then I also can't say that I've never caught myself paying less attention than I should while manually driving either. Such momentary lapses are, fortunately, much less likely to be disastrous with AS engaged.

That out of the way, to be clear: my objection is solely to the implication that using autosteering is inherently more dangerous for all(or even most) people than not using it, or that it universally requires more mental effort to use safely vs. manually driving.

 

[croman]

I find EAP to be kick ass. 28k miles and almost 24k probably have been with EAP. Now that its not sucky, its a pleasure to use (yes, I'm paying attention all the time).

I supervise and it does the grunt work. I don't lose sight of what matters most and that's safety.

I find myself more into the driving because I can better monitor my surroundings and defensively react if need be. I'm always ready to take over and I can feel any funny business before it goes anywhere. EAP is great now. No way is it close to perfect it close to FSD but it's still great. Worth 5k now with promise of more features to come.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

That minutia of keeping in the lane is what keeps you from hitting a lane divider. If you offload it to AP and are not dealing with it yourself, then you are the mercy of that lane keeping system while you're paying attention 200ft ahead

This part of it has always seemed strange to me. I can see missing that I'm too close to a divider if I'm reading something on my phone or otherwise not paying attention at all. But human peripheral vision is very good and sudden motion, rapidly approaching objects, etc, grab our attention and provoke a response extremely quickly, without any conscious monitoring.

Notably, all of this is also true if you're driving manually. You still need to pay attention to that car 200 ft ahead, and tend to rely on subconscious processing and peripheral vision for things like maintaining a lane and avoiding unexpected obstacles. The only real difference is that the computer doesn't tend to just lose attention entirely, or get mentally exhausted and fall asleep.

 

[whitex]

Not never, no. But then I also can't say that I've never caught myself paying less attention than I should while manually driving either. Such momentary lapses are, fortunately, much less likely to be disastrous with AS engaged.

That is the part that I would disagree with completely. When driving, your brain handles a of things automatically, such as when you walk, you're not constantly telling yourself "left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot..." and I'm sure a lot of times simply don't remember how you walked somewhere, but you obviously did. Many of times I've arrived at my car trip destination having little recollection of the drive there - the brain has a built-in auto-pilot. The problem with AP engaged is that our brains disengage completely so a lapse in attention is MORE dangerous on AP than while driving yourself because it takes precious time for the brain to re-engage.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

That is the part that I would disagree with completely. When driving, your brain handles a of things automatically, such as when you walk, you're not constantly telling yourself "left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot..." and I'm sure a lot of times simply don't remember how you walked somewhere, but you obviously did. Many of times I've arrived at my car trip destination having little recollection of the drive there - the brain has a built-in auto-pilot. The problem with AP engaged is that our brains disengage completely so a lapse in attention is MORE dangerous on AP than while driving yourself because it takes precious time for the brain to re-engage.

I think we actually agree here, but you give far more credit to your brain's capabilities when on that form of autopilot than I do. Road hypnosis leads to many, many accidents even leaving aside its tendency to move the brain closer to sleep.

 

[Canuck]

Each time I read a reply I'm persuaded until I read the rebuttal.

I remember when seat-belts were mandated and my grandfather said he'd rather be thrown from a crash than die in one. But it didn't take him long to buckle up -- because of the potential fine. I wonder if AP is the same and I'm being like my grandfather? People still die today in crashes belted in -- when they'd otherwise be thrown clear -- but far more are saved wearing them. Same with AP?

 

[croman]

Each time I read a reply I'm persuaded until I read the rebuttal.

I remember when seat-belts were mandated and my grandfather said he'd rather be thrown from a crash than die in one. But it didn't take him long to buckle up -- because of the potential fine. I wonder if AP is the same and I'm being like my grandfather? People still die today in crashes belted in -- when they'd otherwise be thrown clear -- but far more are saved wearing them. Same with AP?

There is no getting around the fact Ap has tried to crash me three times but I was on it each time

Once into the concrete barrier as it post a curve on 17.11.3. once almost off a bridge after the car bounced a bit because the bridge was concrete and road was lower asphalt. 17.26. And once on 2018.10.4 where it sent me into oncoming traffic.

But it's also saved me from a potential 30mph collision with a deer and I'm sure other potentials that I'll never know. I also know it's the only way I can safely in one go drive to and from my in laws. I would otherwise need to stop and recharge. I am mentally energized thanks to AP and some timely Dunkin donuts coffee in Sheffield Ohio.

I don't think there is a clean analogy and I don't think AP is for everyone. I don't mind supervising and it's not mentally taxing for me to do that. On my last drive AP could maintain a lane in the heaviest fog I've considered driving in. It was perfect but I limited to 35mph because I couldn't supervise it properly at higher speeds even though it handled it at 65mph initially before the fog thickened. It's also done a great job with heavy rain.

I just like having the option and this latest NN is nothing short of amazing. What I expected a long time ago. It's fun to use it and see what it does and how capable it is now versus the white knuckle terror from 2017.

 

[bmah]

Somewhere along the way, this thread stopped being about having AutoPilot enabled on a car when it shouldn't have been, and started being a discussion of the pros and cons of auto-steer. That should be a new thread (or preferably one of the existing threads where that's already been discussed).

Thanks,

Bruce.

 

[Robotpedlr]

To the OP question - you have done your part by letting them know.

So if it remains on your car - bonus for you. It cost Tesla nothing. Granted it’s a $5k option but if you weren’t going to buy it they didn’t lose anything by the oversight.

 

[Uncle Paul]

For those who do not believe that self driving is not a big deal, just imagine if Tesla made an announcement that it was going to be turned off for a while for all those used to using it. Riots in the streets.