Tesla hit by class action sueball over autopilot software updates A class-action lawsuit has been launched against Tesla on the basis that updates to its cars' autopilots are "vapourware." The three sample claimants say that they all paid for a variety of extra features and updates to their Tesla Model S cars, including updates to version 2 of the Enhanced Autopilot, AP2.0, at $5,000 each. …
I've got a loan Model S as mine's in for a repair.. it's an early model and I can honestly say that it's a far cry from the driving experience of my model with all the UK updates. I am not really aware of any features that have got worse, so maybe this is a US thing...
If there is a legit way to sue for dubious updates, someone please sue MS for updates that make things worse e.g. telemetry (spying), knobbling new processors for Win 7 . given that Win7 paid for, some people have now paid for W10 now it's not a freebie and recent updates seem to be all about making things worse
Autopilots in airplanes are stupid as rocks as compared to what a car needs, but the public at large insists on thinking they can operate the airplane completely independently.
The airplane mostly flies in straight lines through empty air. Most changes are directed by the pilot, ground-based radio beacons, or fancy GPS units.
Mostly once they're in the air they only have to worry about geographical features (e.g. mountains), birds, other airplanes, and weather. Er, and restricted air space, sometimes. Car drivers have to worry about all kinds of things: turns in the road, debris, kids and morons running into the street, other vehicles (LOTS of other vehicles), traffic signals, navigational turns, bicycles, pedestrians at crosswalks...
Calling an automated car driving system an "autopilot" may seem evocative of something really clever, but in fact it's an insult.
People have seen Zucker and Abrams' movie too many times. Sorry, kids, Otto doesn't exist in real life.
I'm fully aware of what an autopilot in an aircraft does, as I fly with one. My point is that it must be constantly monitored, which is why I assumed that's the term used by Tesla's offering. It's not a driverless car, although at least one person is no longer around who assumed it was. Of course, the job of an autopilot on the ground is much more complex, which makes it even more important to monitor its behaviour.
@DougS
FFS, No!
Please, I beg you, none of this "objects in the mirror appear closer than they are" nonsense, or cruise control ... don't make me go atomic, I'm havin' a pint to celebrate Windows' demise!
If you buy a product which sports a feature you want, you look up the specs in the manual BEFORE YOU BUY IT to make sure it is WHAT YOU THINK IT IS.
Not really comparable. Unless you have really top end flight management, you only use autopilot once away from the ground - and you generally only need to tell it to fly a heading (or course) and altitude (or climb/decent rate). In general, there aren't pedestrians, animals, other cars, lorries (trucks for our US friends), etc all doing unpredictable things in very close proximity - not to mention a requirement to stay within a narrow (10 feet or less) strip of tarmac with twists, turns and junctions.
So really, an aircraft autopilot is a totally different - and very very much simpler - thing.
I can only imagine them testing out these new features and telling us all about them and how they add up in comparison.
Personally I'd imagine them driving a Tesla with full speed into the 'Hammerhead', turning this feature on and then waiting for disaster to happen :) And although it might be a little unfair it would be highly entertaining :)
Have Tesla really been this bad? It seems hard to believe some would have a bad update experience and everyone else is OK, or are they just keeping quiet, hoping it will get better?
Hmm.
"just keeping quiet, hoping it will get better." Somehow this does not really sound like the American customer (especially the US high end car buyer) response to deficient performance.
This is when they had that bust up with Mobileye and decided to bring the software in house. They dressed it up as an Enhanced Autopilot with features to be rolled out in the future, what it meant was a new AI had to learn everything again from scratch and some features that were working before the update were disabled in the meantime.
> Nothing new to that my Mazda's diesel engine comes with two power versions, as far as I know there is only software that creates the difference
A number of components are likely to be higher end on the more powerful version, plus they may have a fancier finish, but although not "only" software, your point still holds.
> Before we know it, you'll be able to buy the "shell" of a car for next to nothing, but spend $30k in DLC to add functionality like braking, top speed unlock, multiple radio stations, etc.
And just how do you think (at least higher end) cars are currently being sold? And yes, I did pay to be able¹ to put mine over 250 kph.
¹ Only went to 270 kph once on private property, just for the experience. Do not have neither the balls nor the skills nor particularly the inclination to find out what the actual top speed is.
This is a case concerning something that's nothing more than an elaborate (and mis-named?) cruise control system of dubious worth.
Just imagine the court cases surrounding a "fully autonomous" self driving car when that goes wrong!
It's guaranteed that such a car will go wrong. No one can even write down in detail what "driving" actually is, so how can software account for all circumstances? And don't mention AI or machine learning - such things are impossible to certify as "safe".
Calling it a "self driving" car is either going to be the mother of all misleading advertisements, or a reckless appetite for risk on the part of the manufacturer. Both outcomes are likely disasterous for the manufacturer, so why is anyone bothering to do any development at all?
Unfortunately that would often be the person who bought the car.
Basically any box with 4 wheels can do the job.
It's the "Brand" and "Driver experience" that people put large amounts of money down for.
That's said I have no trouble believing that for a lot of routine driving a machine can do it better.
The problem of course is what happens when things stop being routine.
... that's one of the major risks that Tesly took for a long time, relying solely on optical sensors and some dubious software trying to make sense of their output.
There are experienced car manufacturers and related subsystem suppliers around, who always knew by heart that optical sensors can get blinded by direct sunlight and other conditions, and therefore are not good enough as the sole source of information about the driving environment. So they are using radar sensors too, since many years. And they don't promote their driving asssistance systems as "Autopilots" ...
Tesla caught up only recently to the use of radar sensors. And there are a few other things they still have to learn.
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