The interior in these was bargain basement trash, the current Civic feels like a Mercedes in comparison.

As the beancounters at Misubishi said, “It’s still better than -0.”

Mitsubishi was so ubiquitous 20 years ago that it just blows my mind what they’ve become. The Mitsubishi Eclipse was the default “car to buy my daughter for her high school graduation” of my generation, and now... this.

It’s almost certainly intentional for marketing purposes: hook ‘em up front, explain the caveats afterwards and hope they listen. It’s incredibly irresponsible.

Agree, by design.

Heh. Yeah, AP is like a mean drunk driver with a BAC of .26 saying “Hey, give my keys back. I’m fine. I got this.”

Yeah, the car’s safety measures aren’t that good. If you fall asleep with a hand on the wheel it is going to just keep going. That’s all it really takes - one hand on the wheel giving a bit of weight to one side of it.

AuToPiLoT iSn’T fUlL aUtOnOmY iT’s A pIlOt AsSiStAnCe PrOtOcOl

Actively promoting it as autopilot does have an impact. Yes, some would still abuse it, but the current be convinces many more people to do things the system isn't capable of safely.

And that would have happened almost immediately, but very likely he’d have veered onto the shoulder, been honked at, rubbed a guard rail, or something to wake his ass up. I’ve been dumb and driven while tired but rumble strips or the terror of my eyes shutting has always jolted me awake and convinced me to pull over. 

He would have had to have done something to the car to defeat the steering-wheel torque sensors. This doesn’t happen by accident, by design.

Once again proving Musk is an idiot.  Change the g’damn name.

If you want even more proof of this, take a look at that Electrek video “experiment” this week of some Tesladyte in Quebec using A/P on a snow and ice covered highway. The car REPEATEDLY crosses the center line into oncoming traffic. Over and over. The oncoming motorists must have been peeing themselves....

If he’s prone to falling asleep at the wheel, maybe he shouldn’t be driving a car anymore. I don’t care how old he is and/or how much “respect” anyone feels he’s entitled to by benefiting from modern medicine, but he’s a danger to the rest of the road users around him, and should probably have his license removed.

I saw the rarest car in the world the other day: it was a Tesla Model S that did not have a personalized license plate with an electricity/gasoline pun on it. Just the standard-issue tag number. I should have snapped a picture of this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Still his fault. If this is the case, he knows he falls asleep when he sits for too long. He should be taking measures to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep. He failed and it’s ultimately his responsibility to make sure his car doesn’t kill anyone.

This was shot by a reader who’d prefer to remain anonymous,

Of course, Tesla absolutely does not want anyone doing this with Autopilot, under any circumstances.

No, it most likely isn’t. At best it’s equally unsafe, but even the texting-and-driving-idiot you describe most probably has a faster reaction time than a despicable douche who is sleeping.

If you ever spot something like this, drop back and shoot video of the license plate. Send copy of the video to each and every police district he passes through, preferably with GPS data on the vid proving he was asleep at the time he was in their bounds. I suspect each will want to give him a ticket.