There are a lot of things wrong with Elon Musk and his company Tesla. But one of the biggest issues is how they've approached marketing the brand's adaptive cruise control system "Autopilot."
Brandished as autonomous numerous times, the feature is slightly more advanced than what you get in a Toyota Camry, but what it absolutely isn't is autonomous. It can do what most other adaptive cruise control systems can do, but little else despite its name. And now, because of Tesla's marketing and Musk's willful misleading of the public, a motorcyclist was recently killed in Washington after a driver of a Tesla Model S enabled the car's Autopilot feature and ran a motorcyclist over.
According to Herald Net, "A Tesla driver who had set his car on Autopilot was 'distracted' by his phone before reportedly hitting and killing a motorcyclist Friday on Highway 522," adding, "The man, 56, had activated Tesla’s Autopilot feature. He was using his phone when he heard a bang as his car lurched forward and crashed into the motorcycle in front of him."
The police report then states that though the man was ejected from his motorcycle, the Tesla became "lodged on top of him." The Tesla driver called police and EMTs, but the man died at the scene.
To the cop's credit, after performing a field sobriety test, they arrested the driver as by "putting the trust in the machine to drive for him" he failed to be attentive enough to halt the car before killing the motorcyclist.
My take? Good.
I've had my own experiences with Tesla's Autopilot and its drivers before and none of them have been good. There was a time when one tried to run me off the road while I was behind the wheel of a Model S, another where an inattentive driver nearly slammed into my car with my wife and infant daughter, and the countless times Autopilot-using drivers nearly hit me while riding in Los Angeles.
The tech isn't what the company claims it to be and the people using it don't seem to care to learn more than the hype Musk and his stans put out. And now another person has lost their lives because of it.
Musk and Tesla are facing further probes, both federal and personal lawsuits, due to Autopilot's marketing and promotion and I hope more is done to curb its use. The system isn't safe, nor does its users care about those lives around them. More than that, it's something being tested on public roads with those adopters forcing others to be unwilling test subjects, too. I'd rather not be a test rat for some ego-driven billionaire.
What I can express is that our thoughts go out to the motorcyclist who needlessly passed away, and I hope they throw the book at the driver.
H/T to Jalopnik
