Yahoo Autos Mayor Pete Still Thinks Tesla's Autopilot Is a Misleading Name
An employee drives a Tesla Motors Inc. Model S electric automobile, equipped with Autopilot hardware and software, hands-free on a highway in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently reiterated to reporters that Tesla shouldn’t be calling its advanced driver assistance system Autopilot because it doesn’t pilot vehicles automatically. If only someone could do something about that.
It’s something the Germans and other European countries have recognized for years (in Germany Autopilot is called Autodrive for this very reason). Buttigieg spoke with the Associated Press and reiterated that no self driving cars exist on the market today, including Teslas, which use level 2 driving — the worst level for human attention spans:
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“I don’t think that something should be called, for example, an Autopilot, when the fine print says you need to have your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times,” Buttigieg said in an interview with The Associated Press
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Buttigieg said the Transportation Department will hold Tesla or any other company accountable for complying with federal safety standards. “We call balls and strikes,” he said. “I view it as something where it’s very important to be very objective. But anytime a company does something wrong or a vehicle needs to be recalled or a design isn’t safe, we’re going to be there.”
