Tesla: Removal of ‘Autopilot’ from Chinese site a mistake

Chinese media talked to other Tesla owners who said salespeople for the company pushed the self-driving aspect and described the cars as being able to drive on roads without driver input.

As if all the reported crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot system in the US aren’t bad enough, the American electric auto brand has admitted that one of its cars in China has gotten into an accident while in Autopilot mode, adding another layer of scrutiny to the controversial driving assist feature.

The company said it did revise some language on the site to make it clearer to drivers that Autopilot is a driver-assist system and not a self-driving system.

Meanwhile, Luo has also posted online on Weibo a video of the crash, how his blue Model S scraped the sides of a Volkswagen that was parked though illegally and a portion of which remained jutted out on the highway. In fact, it appears far less severe than another recent Autopilot crash in Montana that left a Tesla without one of its wheels.

Reuters was first to report last week that Tesla said it downloaded data from the Beijing vehicle and confirmed it was in autopilot mode at the time of the crash, although the driver was not detected to have his hands on the wheel.

Tesla told Reuters, “At Tesla we are continuously making improvements, including to translations”. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article. The news agency added that the term “zidong jiashi”, which literally translates to “self-driving” can be seen several times on Tesla’s Chinese portal. Autopilot is created to keep a Tesla vehicle driving at a certain speed and within the lane markings, without crashing into other vehicles. However, given that the latest crash which is also China’s first has occurred within months of the fatal May crash in Florida, Tesla’s autopilot system will no doubt be subjected to a lot of scrutiny. The Tesla driver was killed in the accident.

By and large, it’s increasingly starting to look like auto manufacturers will continue to use terms like “Autopilot” and “self-driving” while shifting the burden of knowledge onto drivers. But Tesla denied the connection, saying it had been working on “addressing any discrepancies across languages for many weeks”.

We contacted Tesla for a comment on the approval by RDW and we will update if we get an answer.

Reuters reports that salespersons from Tesla China took their hands off the wheel while demonstrating the function to potential buyers. From now on, they will keep two hands on the wheel at all times during test drives.