When referring to Tesla’s Autopilot, Cadillac’s Super Cruise, Honda Safety Sense, etc. do not refer to those systems as driverless or semi-autonomous.
Words have power and, as keepers of the accepted newswriting style guide, Associated Press Stylebook low-key laid down several key suggestions, telling news-writers in a multi-part tweet that it would behoove humanity no to use “autonomous, semi-autonomous, or driverless” when referring to cars with a suite of advanced active and passive safety systems working together to maneuver a car down a street or highway.
As of today (May 28,2020) the acceptable term for vehicles with driver-assist systems, encompassing the vast majority of commercially available advanced safety suites (they’re looking at you Tesla blogs and news sites) is PARTIALLY AUTOMATED.
We can also, as their tweet in 2017 points out, probably use “partially Self Driving” but probably not “semi-autonomous.”
Check out their multi-part Tweet below.
The term driverless should not be used unless there is no human backup driver. As of now, there are no autonomous vehicles for sale to the public, although many are being tested on public roads. #APStyleChat (2/4)
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) May 27, 2020
Avoid the term semi-autonomous because it implies that these systems can drive themselves. At present, human drivers must be ready to intervene at any time. #APStyleChat (4/4)
— APStylebook (@APStylebook) May 27, 2020
The NHTSA roughly defines five levels of automation with zero being no automation and Level 5 the holy grail where no human intervention is needed where passengers, with 100 percent confidence, can leave all driving up to the computer.
Today, the best systems like AutoPilot and SuperCruise are around Level 2. The driver must remain engaged at all times, monitoring the environment around them.
Level 3 is where we can confidently call some driving systems automated, but there’s a big “conditional” attached. There still has to be a person ready to take control but, for most driving tasks, their full attention is not needed.
As news writers, which even includes small blogs like moi, getting on the same page and using the acceptable terms for a system informs and empowers car owners with automated drivers assist systems that they should pay pay attention at all times when behind the wheel.
For manufacturers, if legit copywriters for their advertisements have a shred of decency, this removes expectations from people reading their ads, these cars really can’t drive themselves, although they’re getting darn good at it.
With how quickly technology advances and how good these sytems get I beleve this argument of “should we or shouldn’t we use ther term autonomous systems” will be moot. Can you believe it’s only been five years since Tesla AutoPilot hit the market? I can only imagine where we’ll be in five years and, if I was a betting man, we can use autonomous, soon.
I know I’ll definitely do my best to use “partially-automated” when referring to systems like Honda Safety Sense or Nissan Safety Shield 360 etc.
