I Took a Ride in a 'Self-Driving' Tesla and Never Once Felt Safe - RollingStone

[Caribbeans]

I Took a Ride in a ‘Self-Driving’ Tesla and Never Once Felt Safe

The tech in Elon Musk’s electric vehicles is supposed to prevent accidents, but in several cases, it nearly caused one

RollingStone.com | Miles Klee | AUGUST 19, 2024

WHEN THE “FULL Self-Driving” setting is enabled in a Tesla, according to the automaker’s own description, the car “attempts to drive to your destination by following curves in the road, stopping at and negotiating intersections, making left and right turns, navigating roundabouts, and entering/exiting highways.”

“Attempts” would be the crucial word here, as I learned during an occasionally harrowing demonstration of FSD around surface streets and freeways in Los Angeles. While it’s true that the technology manages to impress at first, it doesn’t take long for severe and dangerous shortcomings to emerge. And, contrary to claims from exaggeration-prone Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it certainly didn’t seem safer than having an average human driver at the wheel.

One morning in early August, I hop into a 2018 Tesla Model 3 owned by Dan O’Dowd, founder of the Dawn Project. Easily the most outspoken critic of Tesla’s so-called autonomous driver-assistance features, O’Dowd — a billionaire who also co-founded Green Hills Software and made his fortune developing secure, hacker-proof systems for the U.S. military and government — established the Dawn Project to campaign “to ban unsafe software from safety critical systems” spanning healthcare, communications, power grids, and transportation. For several years, Tesla has been his primary target; O’Dowd has orchestrated one safety test after another, mounted a single-issue campaign for Senate, and run expensive Super Bowl commercials to spread his warnings against the company’s FSD software.

My driver for the day’s ride-along — that is, the person who will babysit the self-driving Tesla to make sure it doesn’t kill us or anyone else — is Arthur Maltin of Maltin PR, a London-based public relations firm that represents the Dawn Project and helps to amplify their consumer safety message. As soon as I see Maltin’s bandaged right hand, I ask nervously if it’s from an earlier collision, but he laughs and assures me it was an injury sustained from a fall off his bike. We set out east on Sunset Boulevard with FSD engaged, Maltin with his hands poised right over the wheel to take manual control if necessary...more
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/self-driving-tesla-drive-1235079210/

Tesla has been selling "Full Self Driving" lie for years. If any other company did this there would be outrage followed by action by the NTSB and the NHTSA. But somehow this buffoon Musk is allowed to repeatedly lie and endanger the public. One say we will know why.

Mercedes has Level 3 autonomy on limited roads now, beating the company that has defrauded thousands of people.