The section of that document on "Deciding When To Use the FD/Autopilot" suggests using it for "distracting tasks."
The FAA states that "the FD/autopilot is used to control basic aircraft movement while the pilot focuses attention on tasks such as reviewing charts," which seems quite different from Tesla's autopilot which is "intended for use with a fully attentive driver."
The FAA guideline is "ready to fly manually" -> key word "manual" from the Latin manus meaning "hand". Tesla is going a step further by requiring hands-on contact at all times, which makes this system a MORE restrictive autopilot.
Contrary to what has been posted in other comments, pilots don't just get up and start walking around the aircraft. There must be one pilot always ready to take IMMEDIATE control of the aircraft.
I hate when arguments devolve into semantics, which is the premise of this whole thread. But for the sake of discussing semantics, the use of the word "autopilot" is technically accurate. Its vernacular understanding is not. But this was also the case with cruise control. See this case where a driver set a cruise control on her RV and got up to make a cup of tea:
Being semantically right does not help against technically colliding. I can hook up an avian autopilot to a car to keep my bearing. While this is semantically a car with an autopilot, the contraption is useless on a road.
When I talk about autopilots, I'm talking about a system that allows me to disengage from steering. Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla "Autopilot" does not permit this because I still have to closely monitor the trajectory at every moment. As such it does not fulfil the main expectation I have of an autopilot. What are your expectations of an autopilot?
> Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla Autopilot does not permit this
This is not how Tesla autopilot works.
If you are genuinely asking my opinion, I would very much like to see this technology in the driver seat of more vehicles on the road as soon as possible. Where distracted drivers kill 9 people PER DAY in the US [0], if an autopilot system (speaking about the current one available today) is anything less than that, then it is well worth it.
Autopilots are reliable in aviation because they are simple. An autopilot for road steering cannot be that simple. The term transfers badly.
It is a false dilemma to say that we need autopilots to avoid road deaths. Because assistive tech is already successfully being used for exactly this.
We want self-driving cars to avoid the drudgery of driving. But the current batch of implementations needs very controlled conditions (Waymo), or close human supervision (Tesla).
From the FAA guidlines on Autopilot:
> Be ready to fly the aircraft manually to ensure proper course/clearance tracking in case of autopilot failure or misprogramming [0]
[0] https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a...