Betas allow you to get real-world results without having to pay for research or lab testing. Conducting a beta with a 5,000lb, 500hp sedan is irresponsible. Meh I'd rather have the feature than not. Odds of death arent all that high. That Tesla is 100 times safer than that bicycle ride you do every morning.Google put in the work. Audi put in the work. Toyota put in the work. Tesla put out a "beta" that says you don't need to steer anymore but requires you to keep your hands on the wheel.
Sure - it's 5,000lbs of airbags. My point is that because it senses differently than you, you never know when it's going to be safer and when it isn't. "Semi pulling in front of me" is one of those things that a reasonable driver has a reasonable expectation of safety, and the bridge between "reasonable safety" and "machine safety" has not been properly bridged by Tesla.
Never driven the tesla so don't know how it drives did drive a few acc cars this year though. Some drive more conservative than you would giving you another second or 2 to react because you know if it's slowing down. Others not so much. The Subaru eyesight for example drives like an old Asian woman, it speeds up and slows down erratically and prefers to brake hard and late. That is really bad design. There is about .5-1.0 seconds to react if it malfunctions or you crash. Honda and Mazda keep a good distance and start to slow down early so you know long before that the system is working correctly. Unfortunately they both kick you out under 30mpg which is kind of stupid because that's the lowest injury risk zone and its rush hour traffic speed so exactly when you need it most. The tech is basicLy ready the bugs are there but they could be patched Quickly if auto manufacturers actually did software updates. I would be happy to own and use the system associated risks and all.
You're illustrating exactly the problem I'm outlining. You're conflating adaptive cruise control with self-driving technology and they are not the same. ACC is a short-range speed-matching protocol driven by ultrasonic sensors. It modulates vehicle speed to maintain a set distance between vehicles with zero delta-V. Assuming the sensors are good, the system itself is simple - the complaints you have about Subaru vs. anybody else are a matter of driving feel, not a matter of function and overall, the task they accomplish is theoretically simple. The instrumentation is critical and robust, to be sure, but from a systems perspective it's basic. Tesla's Autopilot will pass the car in front of it if you hit the turn signal. Subaru will beep at you if you stray out of your lane. That's it. They're still maintaining a status quo, throwing warnings at you for deviating and providing instrumentation to help you make it through your commute alive. Tesla is legitimately driving for you. What they're doing is at least a couple orders of magnitude harder, and they're dealing with an environment with radically higher delta V. ACC is a driving aid that fails back to safety. Autopilot is an active technology that - as demonstrated - has no failsafe. Tesla has not made this difference clear to their consumers.
I just dont see the current Tesla tech to be anything more than a glorified ACC. Its a little more capable then the current lane assist but if it hits a corner case I dont expect it to be smart enough to know what to do. Its a still a 10E-4 or 10E-5 Tech not a 10E-6 Tech which is the point id feel comfortable letting it take full control. The lane assist system in any basic car these days is more than capable at handling the car 99-99.9% of the time its just that .1% error isnt not good enough for anything more than a brief distractionYou're conflating adaptive cruise control with self-driving technology and they are not the same.