Tesla rejects plea to change the name of Autopilot: 'Drivers have a false sense of security' says mag
A leading consumer magazine wants Tesla to stop calling its semi-autonomous driving system “Autopilot.” Consumer Reports says the company is misleading car owners by potentially giving them too much trust in their car’s ability to drive itself.
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But Tesla is defiant. A spokeswoman said the company has "no plans" to change the name, and that data it collects show drivers who use Autopilot are safer than those who don’t.
Consumer Reports said Tesla should drop the Autopilot name and disconnect the automatic steering system until it’s updated to make sure a driver’s hands stay on the wheel at all times.
The system currently warns drivers after a few minutes of their hands being off the wheel, said a report in the Boston Globe.
The debate over autonomous driving technology escalated after authorities revealed that Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, died in a May crash in Florida with the Autopilot on in his 2015 Model S.
The system didn’t detect a tractor-trailer that had turned in front of the car in bright sunshine, and Brown also failed to react.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the wreck and the functioning of the Autopilot system. After the Brown crash, critics accused Tesla of giving drivers access to a system that wasn’t ready, while supporters contended the company was improving automotive safety.
Tesla’s Autopilot system uses cameras, radar, and computers to detect objects and automatically brake if the car is about to hit something, said the report in the Globe.
It also can steer the car to keep it centered in its lane. The company says that before Autopilot can be used, drivers must acknowledge that it’s an ‘‘assist feature’’ that requires both hands on the wheel at all times. Drivers also must be prepared to take over at any time, Tesla has said.
Laura MacCleery, Consumer Reports’ vice president of consumer policy, said naming the system "Autopilot" gives drivers a false sense of security.
Autopilot, she wrote, can’t actually drive the car, but it lets consumers keep their hands off the steering wheel for minutes at a time.
Earlier this week Tesla disclosed that a Model X SUV crashed early Saturday in Montana while the driver was using the autosteer feature on a two-lane road, which is not recommended by the company.
Tesla, which gets information from its cars over the Internet, said the car warned the driver at least once to place his hands on the steering wheel before it crashed.
Tesla says Autopilot underwent millions of miles of internal testing and is updated constantly. ‘‘We will continue to develop, validate, and release those enhancements as the technology grows,’’ the spokeswoman said.
Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, has written to Musk asking Tesla to brief committee staff by no later than July 29 on details of the incident.