Tesla's Autopilot is (still) worthless | Auto Expert John Cadogan
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Details about the Federal Government's FBT exemption for EVs & PHEVs under $84,916: autoexpert.com...
Save thousands on any new car (Australia-only): autoexpert.com...
Get reliable 240-volt power off-grid @ Bluetti portable power: www.bluettipow...
OLIGHT DISCOUNT! (These are awesome.)
bit.ly/3zF5hCQ
12% off: Use code AEJC
Help support my independent reporting, securely, via Patreon: www.patreon.co...
Podcast (audio-only version, for listening in the car, etc.): anchor.fm/auto...
Save thousands on any new car (Australia-only): autoexpert.com...
AutoExpert discount roadside assistance package:
247roadservice...
Did you like this report? You can help support the channel, securely via PayPal: www.paypal.com...
Was rear ended while in a roundabout by a foreign national. A couple of highway patrol cops witnessed the accident. My car was damaged enough it had to be towed. Foreign nationals left country within 48 hours, had no insurance and cops also unable to finish their reports - I was left holding the can! Lots of issues around foreign drivers and responsibilities.
What a bastard of a situation.
Got an Indian dude at work, really nice guy. He was saying when he moved to Australia the Indian Consulate sorted him and his wife out with a licence. He has a full R, MC, Taxi, Forklift and MR licence. He was surprised, as he and his wife had never driven a manual car, a truck or a forklift.
@@smileyfacefrown2723 garbage , he's lying.
@@smileyfacefrown2723 in Victoria anyone who moves here from another country who has a license in their country of origin only has to transfer it to a Victorian license, they pay a transfer fee + license fee, do an eye test and boom you've got an Australian license.
You don't even have to be able to speak English, they'll ring a translator to interpret.
It's a stupid rule tbh, every other state makes immigrants go onto their Ls and learn how to drive by Australian standards.
Not in Victoria 🙄 u can thank the woke bleading heart twats for that one, it's no wonder this incident happened.
Shit like this happens everyday on Melbourne roads...
@@smileyfacefrown2723 You should seriously consider reporting this to your State's Road Authority (e.g. Vic Roads) before someone gets killed. You can remain anonymous.
It boggles my mind that they haven't been sued into oblivion for calling it "auto pilot" and "full self driving" when it's clearly none of those things.
I agree - talk about misrepresentative...
America!
They did in EU, there the Electric Fraudster is forbidden to call his cruise control an auto pilot.
Good on them.
Elon "Teflon" Musk. You can't commit blasphemy against our lord and saviour, Electric Jesus.
When I watch your videos John, sometimes I'm not that interesested in the content but I am always enthalled by your command of the English language, your keen knowledge of grammar, and your ability to be concise and succinct in getting your meaning across. I find listening to you most rewarding. I don't know if you do or have, but you should write books. Thank-you. 😀👍
Even when flying a 777, the Captain is ultimately responsible for the flight path of the aircraft regardless of whether the autopilot is engaged.
And there's a lot of time, typically, from cruise to ground impact, in which to sort problems out.
@@AutoExpertJC But your point about (general) driver inattention is well made, I see a distinct lack of situational awareness among many drivers, especially here in WA.
As a career military and now airline pilot I have to agree with your assessment of the Tesla “autopilot” John.
Something else which is well recognised in airline flying, but seemingly doesn’t even get considered in the race to “fully autonomous driving” is the little matter of “automation complacency”.
It’s very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security while flying, in my case, a Boeing 787 because the flight management systems do such a great job 99.9% of the time. The challenge is being sufficiently engaged in the task to manage the 0.1% of the time when it does something batshit crazy. This is the challenge for the electric Jesus. How to keep the driver engaged enough to be awake when the excreta hits the rotary cooling device.
I’ve spent a lifetime doing this stuff and it’s a challenge for me that I acknowledge. How does someone who as just bought their new Tesla as well as buying all the spin that goes with it going to cope when the “autopilot” doesn’t do what the shiny brochure says? I suggest to you, very badly indeed.
Also there are many versions of autopilot and few of them work like most imagine. The most popular versions are really just cruise control for planes. The system takes off some of the pilot's work load but they're NOT flying the plane.
recent dashcam videos demonstrated how a vehicles 'advanced safety features' nearly caused catastrophic accidents.
1. a vehicles 'Automated Emergency Braking' system decided to engage at 100km/h whilst the driver was safely merging into freeway traffic
2. another vehicles 'Lane Keep Assist' overcorrected, nearly causing a collision with a cyclist
Driving is a serious business. I don’t think a lot of people realise that.
Usually it's a trivial or mundane activity. People should think harder about the potential consequences.
Other than speaking to the missus, driving is the other daily life threatening activity
@@AutoExpertJC It shouldn't be, but yes that's how most drivers see it. It's a lounge chair to sit in until they are somewhere else.
Perhaps they should bring back that "crash simulator" I think the RACV used to run it. Little ramp with a car seat attached, simulated a 10kph(?) crash. Sure opened peoples eyes.
Agree, You start to wonder if FSD is really capable of what is claimed to do, when driving 8 to 12 hours a day inside a city bus.
manually driven cars? lol
Another great video John. I had a foreign national reverse his friends' Camry uphill into the brickwall of garage under my house last Friday night. He had his international driver's licence. 1 Camry and a Triumph Tiger 900 gt pro ( my motorbike)written off and front of my house my need to be demolished. 😐
Jesus. Happy Easter...
If you're not going to take full control of your car and enjoy the experience of driving, you should catch a bus or a taxi.
You'll also be responsible for the consequences of any deficiency in the auto systems.
well said
A 737 on autopilot will happily fly you into the ground or a mountain or into another aircraft. it's up to the pilots to properly program it and avoid it doing bad things. It may warn you that something bad is about to happen, but it's up to the pilots to monitor the flight. A whole lot of crashes are due to the pilots getting startled by something happening when they were not paying attention.
That happened in Greece when the pressurisation of the aircraft failed
Good analogy, mostly. A whole lot of crashes are due to the pilots assuming that the autopilot is doing what it's meant to be doing when it isn't, either due to missed input/switch errors or an actual malfunction, and then getting startled when they realise that the autopilot is happily flying them to their death... by which time physics usually dictates that it's far too late to do anything about it. The tragic thing about deaths/injuries involving Tesla's Pretend Autopilot is that they happen on the ground at (comparatively) far slower speeds and after an endless string of opportunities to simply turn it off and start paying proper attention to the road again, all of which make such incidents inherently avoidable. As opposed to the sort of highly specific combinations of error/failure/inattention that are typically required to cause a 737 to fly into a mountain.
@@erikz1337Except that’s not quite what happened. The pilots and passengers on board were incapacitated by the depressurisation, and the autopilot kept the plane in the air in a pre-programmed loop near the destination airport until it ran out of fuel.
I remember when this happened and couldn’t believe the BS that was told about it. As an interstate truck driver of 33 years, we are 100% accountable for everything we do on the road. Make no mistake about it, this woman knew exactly what she did and used that time before she handed herself in to explore her options. Just for a quick comparison, there was a police media conference urging this woman to come forward as they already knew who they were looking for. If I had have done the same thing, the Heavy Vehicle Unit, along with various other police would have opened my office door with a sledge hammer, raided the place seizing all computers, filing cabinets and immediately defected all vehicles registered to my company and made a big song and dance about any small defect that they would have found. I’d also be locked up. Can someone please remind me about male privilege again?
I don't think gender has much to do with it. I'm sure you are aware of trucking companies cutting corners. Not yours of course..................
@@santouchesantouche2873 So you're saying that women get treated exactly the same was as men by law enforcement and in the courts hey? What's your next gag?
well said
@@Fullnoise I'm saying it's a non sequitur. Gender matters not in these cases. The woman was charged. there is a trial. what more do you want to make it seem fair to you? death penalty?
Meanwhile, how many instances of trucking companies are there where corners are cut and tragedies happened? there is no correlation.
@@santouchesantouche2873 Cool story bro, needs more dragons. Non sequitur, really? Perhaps you should do a little research on the penalties handed out to females for the same offences that men commit and get back to me. Just to save you 10 minutes on Google, I’ll tell that they get significantly lower sentences for just about everything they do. As for your problem with the trucking industry, you should probably seek some professional help for that. All I said about the trucking industry is that we are 100% accountable for our actions. While you’re at it, how do you think this would have turned out if the genders were reversed? Link below as UA-cam keeps deleting it.
John, I comment as a former instructor at a world-famous Police driving school here in the UK, and as a former Fatal Collision Investigator with the same Police Force. I have been very sceptical of any and all autonomous driving systems since they appeared. The standard they hope to achieve (and not improve upon) is that of an ordinary, average driver. My Police career's experience taught me that that is actually pitifully poor. Surely the aim of any autonomous system should be to be better than the very best human? Until Mr Musk, or some other maker, for example produces a system that enables his vehicles to pass through a World Rally stage faster than the Championship's best drivers are able to do, then I have no faith at all in such systems.
On another subject, the onus is on the visiting driver to inform themselves of any unusual regulations in the country in which they find themselves driving. It is nothing to do with the State to inform them; nor should it ever be. I cannot imagine that any country's laws say that it is acceptable to leave the scene of a crash without first stopping. If Ms Agrewal thinks that being a visitor to Australia (or any other country) means that she is not going to have adhere to the rules, then she is in for a big surprise.
She is an idiot on two counts: firstly for trusting Tesla's piss-poor system, and secondly for leaving the crash. I hope that justice is done.
Some foreign nationals think they are above laws as they are in their own countries.. I agree 100% with your comment about the mediocre driving standard. I see so much poor driving nowadays it is the main reason crashes happen. The bar should be raised but not holding my breath given the influx of third world unlicensed and inexperienced drivers into the transport industry. You can't mention it without being branded racist. I can't be bothered. Just survive another 4 years to retirement.
John ,
Your t- shirt Resistance is futile…
As an electrician , loved it 😍
When I transferred to a foreign country in the military, we always had to go through local conditions training before being issued a driving permit. Laws, signage/signals, parking rules, customs, etc. not perfect but better than nothing. But, to get an International Driving Permit, it’s just $15 and two passport photos at the AAA and you’re good to go almost everywhere in the world, no questions asked at the rental counter. I always thought that was crazy.
It is outrageous but countries want visitors that spend money, so if the odd local gets cleaned up by some tourist driving on the wrong side of the road, that's just hard cheddar..
@@petesmitt If you vote Liberal or Labor it is YOUR policy too (so don't complain).
@@davidvanderklauw Bullshit-----so what do you do, not vote all and that cures the problem? Who do you vote for, a national socialist party so you can complain?
We drive tonne-plus killing machines, and as such, we need to strive to have 100% attention on the operation of said killing machine. I'm old school to the point where I was averse to using 'Cruise Control' back in the day when it was relatively new. I prefer to be in full control.
I drive with at the very least, my driver's side window down so I can hear what's happening around me. And mirrors are my friends.
It's hard to teach diligence mate.
Just one regard about having your side window open while driving.
If you're driving on urban slow traffic that's ok, but when going faster the turbulent wind noise can impair your hearing ability from that side. In trucking, that's a professional health issue. A friend of mine recommended me to open the opposite side window instead.
@@Humongous_Pig_Benis I generally cracked it about halfway. Yeah, that wind noise can be bad. Internal engine noise is an issue too.
@@Humongous_Pig_Benis Bingo; I do just that.. crack the opposite window a bit and keep the driver window closed; nice n quiet and much better for security as well.
When my dad taught me to drive he said "you know why you have to have a licence to drive? It is because it is potentially a lethal weapon". I never forgot that
My wife took exception to an overtake I made last week and I pointed out to her that the car had made no complaint, whereas during a previous innocuous incident it had nearly stood on its head braking in error.
Not a Tesla, just a bit of driver assist on a Suzuki Turbo.
I’d rather drive a car that did what it is told, as I would rather use any machine that did what it is told, but such things are getting much harder to find.
Totally agree. Had to turn off the lane keep assist in my Subi. It was like having a back seat driver who actualy touched the steering wheel!! Gave me a freaking heart attack every time it did it.
Sadly idiots abound. But Tesla's claim is pretty clear: Autopilot is " ... intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous."
The name if the system is wholly misrepresentative of what it does, and the EU concurs.
@@AutoExpertJC does the name matter when the car nags you every 10-15 second to keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road?
Autopilot in the context of Aircraft is a pretty basic system and actually aligns quite well with what Tesla offer in their vehicles. The issue is some fairly ignorant people think Autopilot in both aircraft and Tesla vehicles is something far more sophisticated than what it is.
The arguments made are highly disingenuous, driving down the highway with ADAS engaged isn't the scenario in which this pedestrian was hit a seriously injured. It happened on a suburban street where there it would be near impossible to actually disengage from the task of driving.
The 2016 crash has no legal responsibility attributable to Tesla. The NTSB found the Truck driver was on drugs and failed to yield, the car driver wasn't paying attention to the road and the Tesla system at that time wasn't designed to mitigate a crash from a crossing vehicle. The probable cause section makes no claims that Tesla was in any way at partial fault, media outlets cast that aspersion, wrongly. They also found no ADAS system by any manufacturer at the time was designed for mitigating the type of crash that occurred.
The use of the NHTSA report into autonomous crashes is also laughable. They require self reporting from the manufacturer and they also acknowledge many manufacturers don't have the data reporting protocols in the vehicles to actually allow them to do it. They also openly state that the data isn't normalised and open to misinterpretation.
Typically enjoy your videos, but this one smacks of bias and seems hastily thrown together for a quick buck.
THE CRASH DRIVER - NOW BLAMES TRAM DRIVER
Who seems to have been speeding; did a hit and run; Did not surrender till 3 hours later, presumably only once she saw it was pointless to hide; Has an already suspended license; Says she thought that >she< had time to slow down for the tram; Now is blaming the tram driver.
I don't think we can put much credibility in any statements from this driver. So like most media storms about drivers blaming Tesla Autopilot/FSD, it will very probably turn out that Autopilot was not engaged.
NB: I am not disagreeing with all your points, just debating the validity of the case at the core of your article.
Reminds me of the old "cruise control activated"..."I'll go make myself a cuppa".
75% of the EV crashes using some form of auto pilot were teslas, yet 85% of the EV's on the road in the US are Teslas, so they are actually under represented.
And most were not using "Full Self Driving Beta" but their adaptive cruise control.
In FSD Beta there is currently 1 accident (causing air bag deployment) every 3.2 Million Miles travelled.
Really, thats not too bad, compared to human drivers.
Very good report JC with an important message; pay attention when driving. Personally I remain to be convinced by many of these so called assistance systems, certainly I’d never 100% rely on them. One example with my current car is that it has speed limit recognition and it displays it on the dash. It’s rarely 100% accurate in any single journey. Extrapolate that across many systems the car is doing for you and the consequences are obvious. Sure human drivers make mistakes, but to think computers don’t get it wrong some of the time is misguided.
But computers are infallible.
Just ask the pilots whose plane stalled because the infallible computer had bad information from a seized angle of attack sensor. For hilarity,my friend photographed his truck mounted GPS showing him in the ocean presumably at the map datum point. Too many numpty managers think that because it is on a computer screen it must be accurate all the time with no understanding of limitations. Blind faith in flawed systems will be our downfall.
Car manufacturers are not doing the right thing for concentration by gluing an ipad to the middle of the dashboard.
Correct. Easy to goof off with CarPlay or A. Auto...
I fkn hate the things.. much prefer mechanical controls that are easily intuitive to use safely.
Not to mention they're downright forcing you to use it in order to operate basic functionality of the vehicle such as the AC. Functionality that used to be operated by physical buttons you didn't really need to look at to use. Tesla is a particularly egregious example of this, they've even removed the gear shifter!
@@TheDeadfast They haven't removed the gear shifter - they've put in back on the steering wheel column where it belongs 🙂
@@AutoExpertJCThe positioning of the damn thing is distraction enough, especially if you have to rely on it for persistent visual inputs.
Good thing the car recorded everything so people can't lie
I have an EJ mobile.
The autopilot has a bunch of disclaimers when you first turn it on.
Basically it's designed for roads like motorways.
It's rooly, rooly good on the Brisbane motorways, which is where it's designed to be used but you still need to supervise it.
On the sort of road where you're going to encounter a tram it's a white knuckle ride because it's rubbish in that environment and shouldn't be used.
I think you have nailed the problem. A long term owner will understand where to use the auto system and where it is useless. A person with little or no experience seeing this feature and giving it a go without the "training" in it's foibles leads to a bad day for someone.
@@robames1293agree. Airline pilots are trained how to use auto pilot but drivers who drive an semi autonomous vehicle are not. Most drivers don’t even read the cars manual so how are they going to know how to use a complicated system such as autopilot.
Pilot and aviation accident analyst here: actually, an aircraft autopilot is almost exactly the same as Tesla's "autopilot". It automates some functions, but not all, and needs to be closely monitored at all times. The pilots must always be ready to take over and fly the rest of the way manually. Unlike the "fly-by-wire" system, which translates inputs from either the human pilot or the autopilot into flight control surface actuations to make the plane do what was commanded, and which are among the most reliable software systems ever created, the autopilot is not required to be particularly reliable, and is expected, just as it says in the Tesla manuals, "do do the wrong thing at the worst possible time." Autopilots don't fly the plane, they just make it easier to do routine tasks, such as follow a set of waypoints, maintain a comfortable climb, and hold altitude.
If you're saying "Tesla Autopilot is useless", then you can't actually know what it is.
It's adaptive cruise control combined with one of the better lane keeping systems, and isn't an added extra like "Enhanced Autopilot" or the "Full Self Driving" pack, which certainly aren't worth the money at this time.
Not entirely correct regarding crash with injuries. If stopping to render assistance creates a greater hazard, then leaving the immediate area is advised. Two examples: Crash in super fog. Crash on ice. Huge pile-ups are made worse by not using reasonable caution.
I had two vehicles spin in, around and in front of me when we approached a snow squall segment. They were racing with each other. One spun 180 onto the right shoulder, the other half spun onto the shoulder then half spun again into the medial guard rolling into a crumpled ripped entrapment. I kept my semi rolling away since it would have been a solid object on solid ice. I called EMS during that mile or two. Thankfully the camera recorded everything. We sent the state police the video, no liability or infraction.
Tesla can call it what it likes. Pro tip - it's made very clear in all correspondence that you are responsible at all times.
This is up there with the story about the person who left the driver's seat of their moving Winnebago to make a cup of coffee because the "cruise control" was on.
Love your work!
When are you installing the bin cam ? 😅
So many comments on here as usual from people who refuse to use cruise control, drive with a window cracked, have never used driver assists, scared of change. You do some great videos but you definitely have a demographic of followers. ‘Autopilot’ is a clever marketing name. I have had many cars with assists. Some are better than others. ‘Autopilot’ is an assist at this stage and as an ‘assist’ is an excellent tool. One must always be paying attention whilst driving a car. As with a new tech one must be attentive and cautious while using. I have been driving a Tesla with the standard autopilot for months. It does have some odd habits, once worked out and used correctly it is in my opinion 100% safer than a vehicle without. The fact you think these safety systems are useless is absurd.
We barely inform Australian license holders of their responsibilities, not to mention the variations introduced by different states. It’s virtually impossible to properly inform foreign nationals, not to mention language barriers.
John, you’re a die hard petrol head. We get it. But calling all Tesla’s ‘Elon Musk shitboxes’ is equally as misleading and calling FSD a fully autonomous system that’s totally road safe right now. Whilst I agree that the autopilot and FSD naming is misleading (at this stage) there are a fuckload of warnings that the driver must be fully attentive and ready to take over at any moment when any autonomous system is activated. It’s not like we were going to wake up one day and FSD had gone from 0% ready to 100% ready. It’s a long transition and development period that needs real world drivers and km’s on the road. I use Autopilot all the time. Racked up shitloads of km’s with no issues. But I’m not an idiot and I understand what it can and can’t do. It’s great on the freeway at times when I want to give my foot a rest. It’s great at low speeds in stop start traffic. But I don’t ever let my attention deviate. You can’t just assume that we all switch off completely. That said, I view it at this stage of development that it’s an assistive technology at best. Nevertheless, it’s improving at a rapid rate. This is evident from the MANY videos on YT where people are documenting the improvements on FSD Beta in the US. We have an older version of it in Australia. For sure it needs more time, and for sure it’s not a replacement for a fully attentive driver. But the tech is improving, and the world we live in means it needs to be used on the roads by real people to keep improving. Because that’s how the economics of technology development works… don’t hate the player… Hate the game…
John, apologies if I missed the episode but where do you get your groovy science T shirts from? Thank you for your great information as always.
Even without navigate on autopilot on city streets available yet. Having used Autopilot FSD CONSISTENTLY for 3 months straight on Model Y, I find interrupting less than 2% of the time duration.
Commute has become much less stressful for sure - going straight, changing lanes with minimum interruption, pushing down the stock to tell it to go / no go.
Overall 98% of the time (duration), it drives by itself.
I was watching a Louis Rossman YT video commenting on Testla's employees spying randomly on customers using cameras on their cars in compromising positions and sharing with others.
same thing is possible with any 'smart' camera equipped technology..
Reminds me of the old clown some time ago in the US who bought himself a flash RV with newfangled cruise-control, which he'd never experienced before; driving along the highway in his flash chariot, he engaged the cruise-control, which he thought gave the RV self-driving capability and went to the back to make himself a cuppa; the cops managed to work this out when they found the wreckage with his corpse inside..
Just for a second there i thought you weren't going to say "Electric Jesús" thankyou for not disappointing me!!!🤣😅🤣
I've had a few very close calls getting off trams in Melbourne. Take a second to look too your left when getting off a tram. Arguing your right of way from under a tesla is a bad way to start your day.
Honestly, how many people under 25 these can go without looking at some sort of screen every 45 seconds? How do we expect them to drive a vehicle?
Still remember story about dude in USA in motor home when turn "cruise control " to make coffee.
Ended..... vary bumpy
Guess we never learn as society
If you had a Time Machine, John, I suspect we wouldn’t be having Easter.
We'd still have Easter, but I'd take out the woo-woo.
@@AutoExpertJC can we have an Easter at a time it doesn’t piss down rain when we go camping ? In Elons name, Amen.
I'm also confused why a 15" touchscreen is not considered a distraction similar to a phone......
here's the thing; mounting a phone in front of a driver is just as legal as a vehicle touchscreen..
There was a court case in Germany where a Tesla driver got his licence suspended for using a mobile device after crashing while trying to adjust his wiper controls which are on the touchscreen. Because Tesla.
Well presented John, as always.
I like your comment at the end about you as the driver being responsible for your action.
In the aviation world, there is a phrase 'Who is flying the plane, the pilot (human) or the autopilot (computer)?'
Finally the question to the driver is that why did she use the shitbox autopilot in the urban road?
If more people actually enjoyed driving, or at least found it moderatly pleasant, there would be no demand for auto pilot.
So many cars these days seem to be built to isolate the driver from the driving experience ..... this is, to put it bluntly, dangerous.
We need vehicles that are enjoyable to drive and keep you engaged.
This is why I prefeer a manual transmission and if I drive a auto gearbox, I drive the gearbox manually at least some of the time.
Nicely put Mr C. I believe there should be a Royal commission to look at the licensing procedures. Driving is a culture. Work needs to be done for cultures to work together.
I wonder if there is anything in the owners contract about liability, when it comes to 'auto pilot' ballsing up. My current vehicle has 'adaptive cruise control' and i had to sign a waver, stating that i understood that the car didn't drive itself.
I love you mention Hitch...!!!! I miss someone like him in the media nowadays..!!!
Where's bin cam?
It's impossible to argue with a computer that says there was nothing in the way when there was.
Hi John. You completely miss the point here. Forgetting the Tesla self drive issue, here's the real problem.
In all likelyhood the lady driver is an asian immigrant, in this case I think you mentioned India. Here's a nice story for you...
About five years ago I was walking across a zebra crossing on the Gold Coast on Enderley Avenue and I was on the road proper traversing the crossing. A car drove around the corner and the driver was forced to stop to give way, in this case about half metre from my legs. I noted the driver was an apparent Indian decent or similar. He grimaced and offered me verbal comments I couldn't hear as the windows were closed, suffice to say the facial expressions showed excesses of displeasure. He then honked the horn and gesticulated that I was impeding his progress and started to creep forward (he was already well onto the zebra crossing) and attempted to fear me into getting out of his way, which I resisted.
He continues to creep forward to force me out of his way and to make me increase my rate of pedestrian knots, which I refused. Finally mere millimetres from my legs he waited until I was past his car - still well on the crossing and he accelerated away briskly. I watched him turn left onto the next road gayly travelling through a stop sign at 30kph or so.
Now as you'll see here a bit later I don't hold him in any way responsible for his actions, he was quite innocent, (poorly educated, ignorant and stupid to be sure) but innocent.
I blame the Australian government entirely and here's why.
In the words of Murray Walker; "If I may interrupt myself for a moment". Here's a fun thing to do John. Phone a hire car company in Oz and say I've got a Thai mate coming to stay and he has an International Driver Licence. Is it okay for him to hire a car from you next Tuesday - be shocked at the result... It's great fun to do...
I have travelled through many OS countries including Asian ones. I have observed the imposing poverty and disadvantage that being born in one of those locales brings, vis a vis a lack of education and opportunity. I'm not just just talking India and Co, but also places like Thailand and that area in general. For good measure we can throw in the entire African continent save for South Africa maybe, well the whites anyways.
Now, as a former federal police officer of some 17 years good standing in this country, it quickly came to my attention that many asian drivers were arriving in Terra Firma Australus, with no driving license and many having never been in a vehicle. Remember hundreds of millions of Indian people will never use a plumbed toilet or a phone..
Same applies for other Asian and African countries. So what to do...
I know, travel to a first world nation, get a learners permit and take driving lessons...
Nah, fuck that! Go to your local version of the NRMA, RACQ etc, in the country you are leaving and buy an International Driver Licence (IDL) essentially a Weetbix packet licence. (Now for reference these were originally designed as an adjunct supporting document to translate govt issued licences into English - you know the real language).
So when I was patrolling the beautiful streets of Canberra in the ACT, I started to come across these IDL documents. I made inquiries and found out they were issued by NRMA like organisations in the home country. So when I came across them invariably for shockingly poor driving, I would ask for their Drivers Licence, and they would indicate the Weetbix packet was it. Several minutes later, I would ascertain they have never driven before or ever held a drivers licence in their home country, at which point I would rip up the Weetbix and issue them an infringement for unlicensed drive.
There is a common thought that Asian drivers are poor drivers with poor eyesight, and I have been observing this for forty years - but it ain't a vision thing - it's a training issue.
As the cartoon on Family Guy goes - with an asian lady driving on an American freeway asking herself; "How many times must I indicate to cross seven lanes of traffic? Oh none...Good luck for everybody else". Don't you just love Seth McFarlane.
So every day - year in year out, thousands of immigrants come to our shore armed with their NRMA local version of Weetbix packet licences, and they drive off into their Australian motoring adventure. Driving for the first time in their lives. People who cannot read English or have ever been questioned as to their understanding of our road rules. They learn as they go...
A mate of mine had a PNG friend who arrived and drove off happily having never been in a car, he lived happily and then his children had to (gee just like an Australian kid) learn to drive...Nah, fuck that, pop back to PNG buy a licence and return to Oz and up, up and away...a week later.
I have a colleague from Thailand, has been driving here for eight years, still has her Thai Weetbix licence, has been stopped by police who accept it as a real Driver Licence...Doh! She never drove ever in Thailand.
I saw it in WA when a Kiwi colleague brought over a dial-a-bride (also Thai from memory) and he had her driving from day one. She'd also never driven and could not remember being in a car except Tuk Tuk taxis as a passenger.
We all laughed heartily as she approached the main intersection in town and sat there giving way to everything (although she failed to exercise her right of way - principally cause she had no fucking idea that she had right of way) thus causing other drivers to take matters into their own hands and create hazardous movements. I last saw her in the local club having a beer with her newly issued real WA licence that was swapped for her toilet paper one, stating she was looking forward to teaching her daughter how to drive...
Check the history of the Indian woman it is possible that she too has/had a Weetbix packet licence - the cause of many an Aussie prang and will no doubt be in the future, until someone finally puts a stop to it... Question is how many Australians have to die before this madness is stopped, and finally when will Australian Police be told to start tearing these toilet paper licences up and start issuing unlicensed drive infringements? I wonder...
Keep up the good vid's,
Love Steve Lane Townsville, QLD...
P.S. Take a gander at my vid - The Ballad of MH370, it will give ya a better understanding of aviation culpability....
Oh, and for those who reply that I'm racist...Yeah , Nah, just spreading a lifetime of facts is all, so please understand that I feel ya pain, but on the other hand - go fuck yourself! I don't care for your petty ministrations.
Cheers...
Something I have been discussing lately. There are housing developments in Australia that are approximately 50 years old. where the roads and pedestrian paths are separate networks. It's difficult to describe, but when you see it, it makes sense. Basically, walk out the front of the house, all normal, roads and car ports but no foot path. Walk out the back, pedestrian and cycle paths and not cars.Pedestrian underpasses means that at no point are pedestrians and vehicle are on separate networks that are layered over each other. But at no point does a pedestrian have to ever cross the road, within that estate.
I get it would be hard to retrofit any suburb, but newer estates should consider this model in new estates. The estate I have seen, isn't a bunch of derelict lane-ways covered in graffiti. Open parks and common areas and a reasonably desirable area.
I actually own a Tesla model 3 so I comment from experience rather than regurgitating anti EV crap from newscorp.
So auto pilot. It is totally misnamed if one blindly assumes something will do what an overly drug addled marketing person calls it. I worked out within the first half hour of owning my model 3 that at best it’s radar cruise control with lane keep.
There is no effing way I’d use it around pedestrians or trams. I won’t even use it in lane keep mode when driving in town.
If you want to experience near death, jump into a model 3, engage “auto pilot” on any road with a roundabout. It will almost definitely crash.
To use “but it’s autopilots fault” as an excuse shows a complete lack of responsibility for anything. Driving away from the scene of a collision especially when someone has been injured proves that point.
Lock the driver up and never ever let her drive anything again. Not even roller skates.
Thank you John for the public information about drivers being in control and staying attentive regardless of driver aids in use.
I use Autopilot for 90% of my motorway driving and that's really where it's supposed to be used. Drivers fall asleep or have medical emergencies on the motorway every day while not using driver assistance and there are already several examples of Autopilot and similar systems saving potentially fatal crashes by bringing their car to a stop with hazard lights flashing.
Still, I don't put my trust in Autopilot. I'm fully alert and if I'm getting tired I pull over and take a break.
For advanced drivers who wish to test Autopilot out on main roads, understand that it's not designed for complex city interactions. It's purely for staying between the lane markings and speeding up/slowing down in traffic. If you agree to those terms and are ready to take over at all times, go for it.
Even FSD, which is designed for city streets, is still in Beta in North America. Whilst it's showing amazing progress, even most of the people testing it think it's at least a year away from removing the "driver aid" moniker and being ready for the driver to read a book or whatever.
While EJ would admit he was naiive about the remaining work (he's stopped giving predictions in the past year) it's still the right methodology to my engineering brain.
I agree that Autopilot might be a real asset if you lapse into a diabetic coma at 110km/h...
It was probably eight years ago I was howled down as a luddite for suggesting that this tech had a very long way to go before it could be trusted..
It's not likely to be deployed, fully functional, any time soon.
I agree. It’s not years away. It’s decades away.
@4:10 There is nothing "racist" about pointing out that different cultures and different countries can have different expectations and social rules. What are normal conventions of behavior for one society need not be so obvious to another. Understanding what makes us all different is part of integrating diversity successfully.
JC, for legal reasons, there will never be auto/self driving in near future. Not in my life time.
To have fully self driving, there has to be AI as smart as the best human driver can be.
I don't know about Australia, but I can tell you that in New York State leaving the scene of an accident such as that is a felony in and of itself
Not sure it's a crime here (not a lawyer). Certainly it's an offense, but might be a traffic infringement.
That law was passed because people were having accidents while drunk, leaving the scene, and then turning themselves in when they were sober. This way you don't escape
@@AutoExpertJC
It's most definitely a criminal offense.
Under section 146 Road Transport Act 2013 (NSW), a person who drives a vehicle on a road that gets involved in an impact causing either injury or death to another person will be guilty of an offence if the person either knows or ought reasonably to know that the vehicle has been involved in an impact causing such harm or death, and where the person fails to stop and give assistance that may be necessary and that’s in the person’s power to give.
For first-time offenders, the maximum penalty is a $3,300 fine or 18 months in jail or both.
With this is also an automatic driver disqualification period of 3 years or a minimum of 12 months at the court’s discretion.
For a second or subsequent offender, the maximum penalties reach up to two years in jail or a 5,500 fine or both.
A driver will also face up to a 5-year of driver’s licence disqualification or a minimum of 2 years, at the court’s discretion.
Not allowed to pass a stopped tram in Melbourne.
If I may quote Tesla itself on Autopilot;
"Autopilot includes the following functionality and features:
Traffic-Aware Cruise Control: Matches the speed of your car to that of the surrounding traffic
Autosteer: Assists in steering within a clearly marked lane, and uses traffic-aware cruise control"
"Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous."
Apparently not all Tesla owners can read …
John, you mentioned Heaven. Mark Twain said Heaven for the climate, and hell for the company.
Autopilot is not a term used in any standards or requirements for motor vehicles sold in Austra or any other country I know of. It’s never been an excuse to not operate a piece of equipment correctly because a term is not understood by Joe Public. Tesla does not claim anywhere I know of that the vehicle can be driven autonomously lvl 5.
Hey John, just wanted to point out that I'm a regular viewer and there's absolutely nothing racist about anything that you've said.
The Product is "Full Self Driving BETA" it will not be ready for another couple of years where the Beta may be removed.
To use the product you sign up and have some clear details about having control, you are not allowed to let go of the steering wheel, you know you are in control.
I don't understand the drivers who think they can let a car drive itself, the car tells you NO.
Comment on foreign nationals driving in Australia…
You are absolutely not being racist
If someone expects to drive on our roads in Australia , you MUST KNOW the RULES
If you don’t , catch a taxi !
I have driven all round the world
I made sure I knew the RULES before I got behind the wheel
SIMPLE
The day the fully fail safe autonomous driving system is successfully implemented that's the same day the steering wheel gets deleted from the options list permanently.
So never, then …
I would never trust any car "autopilot" after 52 years of driving coaches I've seen so many accidents caused by people not paying attention, in the UK we have smart motorways, if a car breaks down good chance someone will run into it.
I've always wondered why that started with cars. Surely there are better things to start with. Like trains? Once you have driverless trains have a look at ships. After ships, planes and finally cars. Agricultural tractors, mining trucks etc in the mix somewhere. But cars should be last as they operate in the most unpredictable environment. They are the ones that will be the most technically difficult to automate.
Well said
@Retired Bore yes undoubtedly correct. Our farm is just the opposite, small, hilly, creeks, swamps, you would be lucky if 50% is tractor country. Some places I go are fine, but move over a couple of feet and you are in trouble. Would be a nightmare for an autopilot set up. But yes those big flat farms are a very good place to start.
The reason I started with trains is I see them as simplest. Start, stop and speed, that's about it. Everything has to look out for, give way to, the train, not the other way round as they can't stop quickly even if they need to. Cars operate in an extremely complex environment that we tend to overlook due to familiarity.
Fly-by-wire technology has been used on planes for decades. Still have to have a pilot, though…
@@grahamstrouse1165 fly by wire is an electric connection between the controls and the parts being controlled as apposed to a mechanical linkage. This is not autopilot, although it probably makes adding autopilot easier to add. Autopilot is the system used to make the plane fly in the right direction, at the right hight and correct speed without constant input from the pilot. According to an airline pilot who gave a talk at a flyin we attended a few years ago, planes are basically ready to not have a pilot, usually. People definitely aren't ready to accept this yet though.
Why would anyone trust a car being autonomous especially when driver aids such as active braking are so unreliable.
My company has Mercedes Benz trucks and I turn the active braking off due to false warnings when no hazard is present.
It was reported on MMM's night shift program of a NSW ambulance of a Mercedes Benz Spinter leaving the road when active braking came on with no hazard in front of it.
I believe that in the case of the first person to be killed by an automobile, the driver was drunk. In court, he said "Well I was drunk, your honour". Your Honour said " Well that explains it then, that's quite reasonable".
Almost as good as 'the sun was in my eyes'.. this classic has allowed people to get off for killing cyclists.
Road traffic authorities are also culpable. They certify vehicles as fit for use on our roads. They know that these human factors defeating functions (auto-pilot) can lead to death, injury, destruction. They should not allow anything that sounds like autonomous vehicles without proof that they system can pass a driving test. I developed safety critical software and had to develop a safety analysis report for the customer - who uses these to assess whether the latent risk is acceptable.
"The sh!t sandwich is mainly going to be sh!t." 😂
Tesla autopilot is nothing more than the adaptive cruise control that is present on all cars built after 2010. Before the driver can use the autopilot, there is a warning screen and reminder that this is just a dumb program that can see lines and cars and obstacles only, but it will not respond to traffic signs, traffic lights or various issues on the road, so a full attention is required, and for this, the hands must stay on the wheel at all times, or it will stop the car. As such, when using this program, the driver alone is responsible for any accidents that may happen.
We can agree on how stupid the name is if you wish, but do not judge the functionality of the program by only looking at its name and imagining what it does.
And it doesn't help your point when the only thing you have in your favor is "allegations". As if nobody else in history was trying to shift blame by accusing a machine malfunction. I'm not saying this feature is flawless, and I know it's not, but saying that the car is responsible for the accident is just too much. Do you think there are no accidents where a Hyundai or Kia were on cruise control? In that case, who was responsible, the driver or the car? Just think on this and answer truthfully.
Having flown a 737 with an auto flight system it is a crew's responsibility to monitor its performance during flight. Anyone not performing the same rigor in a car is asking for trouble. Calling it an autopilot is not the problem but relying on these systems in an environment infinitely more complex than flying is foolish indeed
I agree with that - the problem with the name is the implied false representation of what the system is capable of. And, as you said, things go wrong fast in a car.
The more automated alleged safety/control systems fitted the more people rely on them, switching off levels of concentration and their own responsibility because, well, the vehicle does it for me.
Adaptive cruise takes away responsibility for judging your own distance from the vehicle in front, to the point people actually rely on it to brake for them.
My own bugbear is AEBS, something that can't be switched off in my MAN truck (not as i would, leaving oneself open to finger pointing without defence), i've had to adapt driving to prevent the system braking for no reason whatsoever in chicane type scenarios, having to exaggerate a route through obstacles instead of going smoothly through.
We've already got roads full of people vegetating behind the wheel increasingly leaving the car to do the driving for them, a few moments spent checking out the wording in the handbook or drivers manual for the vehicle should remind them that they the driver is, and always will be, responsible for what happens, that is clearly stated in the driver's manuals i've read.
Exactly right. I've always thought that the only way to have AEB that works *with* the driver in all situations is if the car actually knows how to drive perfectly well, it's just watching while the driver is in control.
Slaloming past parked vehicles is one thing a car with FSD will understand. Being able to judge the dynamic situation requires full understanding of the road, vehicles and pedestrians, and their likely future projected paths.
There’s a substantial body of evidence that suggests that when we rely excessively on this kind of technological it tends to dull our reactions and response time when we do have to respond to novel inputs. There is sweet spot & it varies from person to person but if we’re 1) unable to respond to something surprising effectively because our senses are dulled or we just plain screw up & 2) we cause an accident we’re responsible for our actions. This should not be controversial.
No sympathy for a driver that flees the scene. Throw the book at them and they can contemplate their immorality in prison. You would have to be an absolute idiot to rely on autopilot in a suburban setting imo.
We have come to the time Einstein warned us about. The disaster when technology is too advanced for the average person to handle. Cell phones is another of those too advanced for the average person devices.
Touch your phone while using auto pilot next to the highway patrol, that will give you a pretty good indication on where the law stands with auto pilot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Or get tanked and get Autopilot to drive you home.
@@AutoExpertJC I was thinking less Barbwire for a test case.
hi JC (non-electric of course), did you make more money making a video of your expert testimony notes than you would in court actually testifying (and opening up yourself to possible liability or future problems)? keep up the good work.
I’ve just returned from a shopping trip to IKEA Canberra. There was a new, cherry red Tesla model 3 waiting in the drop off zone, it’s left blinker insouciantly winking for minutes, proudly bearing the following legend on a prominently displayed bumper sticker, “I’m probably not driving.” Says it all really!
I bet that the blinker fluid level was low as well 😀
Perhaps the law needs to be changed requiring autopilot to be disabled in cars sold in Australia.
Boarding a tram? Is there not an obligation to stop and allow boarders to do so safely?
And, I thought Teslas had an all-round camera system. The footage could prove enlightening during the court cases and the inevitable law suits
The German government told Tesla that they could not call it auto pilot and must call it driver assist.
If Tesla eventually nails FSD and it ends up saving millions of lives into the future (many humans are terrible drivers), then isn't that a potential great thing. Many things are claimed to be impossible until they aren't.
imagine if everyone involved in an accident needed to be retested to keep their license. I'd expect that would make a difference, people might avoid crashing their 5 star safe car more often with that risk.
Is it just me but, regardless of what your call Tesla’s driving systems, who in their right mind would use these systems (including cruise control) in a built up area which would be where Trams run down the middle of the street?
You're over-estimating the median level of responsibility among affluent dickheads.
If you find that scary, consider that trucking companies are importing Indians to pilot B-double trucks..
I do not see the problem with calling it autopilot. Commercial airline Autopilots have a pilot flying, watching out the windshield ready to take over, the other pilot is constantly checking what the autopilot is doing speed, fuel consumption, altitude, and waypoints. Remember the 737 Max, autopilot killed all those people because they did not keep the autopilot off.
So just because a land-based system messes up and the driver does not take back control is not a system issue it's a driver issue.
Carrying on about an auto-pilot car hitting a pedestrian is sort of throwing a rock at a glass window. That statement is basically saying no driver has ever hit a pedestrian, car or tree that walked in front of them. Drivers do this every day and there is no headlines about this because it isn't sensational.
Well, we gotta start somewhere. They used to mount horse heads on horseless carriages because horses would rear up and panic when meeting one without a horse head on the front. Women were known to faint as well.
Its easy to be caustic about something that obviously needs more work in perfection but I will take a driverless car any day when perfected than dealing with drunk, opiod-high, angry, sleep deprived, in a hurry or someone thinking what is on their phone is more important than the road in front of them.
Remember, I said when it is perfected and we have to start somewhere instead of throwing rocks.
luv @ best wishes to the nurse hope your recovery goes well @ speedy
I'm not entirely certain that this autopilot case should be considered in a vacuum. I'd suggest that the death's caused by autopilot need to be weighed against the number of death's caused by foreign nationals without autopilot. I'm tempted to suggest that autopilot might actually kill or injure less people than foreign nationals without autopilot. In such an event autopilot would be a safety improvement.
Hypothetically, there may or may not be some benefit to sobering up before turning yourself into to the police, especially if you are too drunk to operate a motor vehicle or render assistance at the scene.... I'm not suggesting this point is relevant to the case at hand, but being found drunk or perhaps with used syringes and 20 kilos of heroine on the back seat might not not improve the driver's defense. And again, in such a case autopilot might actually not be a bad thing.
Not racist at all John.
As a copper I've lost track of the amount of sheer fuckwittery I've been party to from foreign nationals who come from countries with no barriers or testing in place to get a driver's licence.
The fact our laws allow someone on a student visa to simply hop right in a car here without any equivalency test or licence process here to ensure they understand our road rules is mind boggling.
I hope the court ordered her to surrender her passport.
I don’t even like using cruise control in my car, thinking of the extra millisecond or so that it could take to respond to, for example, a burst tyre. That extra time could be the difference between stopping relatively safely as you automatically move your foot from accelerator to the brake or the car being thrown in the direction of a wall or a tree without slowing down as it’s happily travelling at its set speed. Maybe I’m just old fashioned but the person behind the steering wheel should always be the one manually putting inputs into the car, not some ludicrous computer.
The car can respond much faster than you
Hahaha always funny viewing when you mention EV and EM together...... laughing at, not with 😊 Knowledge is learnt through fuck ups but as usual you let the Strawman run freeee! Hahaha... Always funny as fuck🎉
Glad you to mention the "this is not racist" statement. You can't say a damned thing anymore without being labeled racist. Yeah, it makes perfect sense, that if somebody moves from one country, to another country, that they might not be familiar with all the laws. And if you happen to point out this simple, logical point, you must be racist. Gawd Almighty, folks, not everything under the sun is racist. /rant over
I think you mean "if there was a time machine" not, "if there were a machine". It's terrible when the education department leaves someone behind.
No, it's definitely the subjunctive expression, so 'were' is entirely appropriate. Back to school for you...
@@AutoExpertJC The context of your sentence infers that the time machine would have to exist in the present to change the past. But even if I were wrong, i dont believe more school would help me.
As somebody, who on an irregular bassis, drives long distances up to 10 or 12 hours ( sound fatigue management practices employed) in a day, cruise controll is a wonderfull thing, BUT, I don't trust it, ( no matter how clever) as far as I could comforatbly spit a rat.
I remember the European visitors who put cruise control on in their hire camper…..then popped in the back to boil the kettle or make a sandwich and ended up in a paddock.
Common sense isn’t all that common.
I’m looking at an EV,solely for the tax benefits, but don’t hold any faith in all brands of any level of semi-autonomous driving.
Always the nut behind the wheel that’s responsible 🤷🏼♂️
Autopilot in the Cambridge dictionary is defined as automatically holding a planes trajectory without human intervention. Autopilot, enhanced autopilot or FSD beta? Each is a different product. All are clearly explained on the Tesla website (& have been for a decade or more). Written warnings of limitations on your vehicle software too, assuming you can read. But none of that is the issue. Tesla do not sell there cars to middlemen, so pose a financial threat to the likes of JC (selling cars cheap in Aus). So I suggest any opportunity to slate said brand is taken by our 'engineer' in a vain attempt to stem the sales. P.s. check out the best selling cars (not just EVs) in Aus each month.
There was a guy here in the UK who used to put regular videos on UA-cam, driving his Teslas. Every update to the self-drive system gave him a headline for his next video, but every one showed how he had to intervene very frequently. Rarely did more than 2 minutes elapse between interventions.
I've no idea if he's still posting, I got bored with them, all being the same really.
To paraphrase, full autonomy will arrive when the polar icecaps melt.
Love your channel and comments. Excellent job.