Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla’s Autopilot is neither automatic nor a pilot. Discuss.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had this to say about Tesla’s driver assist system:
I wouldn’t call something ‘Autopilot’ if the manual explicitly says that you have to have your hands on the wheel and the eyes on the road all the time.
The branding of Autopilot is obviously problematic, but Buttigieg wouldn’t comment on the status of the various federal investigations into Tesla’s misleading claims around self-driving. Meanwhile the company can just rollout software updates to address any possible recalls. So while Buttigieg has issues with Autopilot, it’s not clear whether he knows what to do about a car that’s also a constantly updating computer.
