Tesla Autopilot

[jesmu84]

https://www.youtube.com/v/3yCAZWdqX_Y

[wadesworld]

https://www.youtube.com/v/3yCAZWdqX_Y

Is that even legal in the US?

[Tugg Speedman]

Is that even legal in the US?

Yes, CNBC has been live test driving one all day on TV.

[jesmu84]

Is that even legal in the US?

Many cars on the market have "auto" cruise control that will keep you a certain distance from the cars in front of you. Several also have "lane control" that senses lane lines and keeps you between them. This goes a little beyond, but not by much.

[Tugg Speedman]

Many cars on the market have "auto" cruise control that will keep you a certain distance from the cars in front of you. Several also have "lane control" that senses lane lines and keeps you between them. This goes a little beyond, but not by much.

It's way more than that.

R&T tested it in heavy Manhattan traffic and it did fine.

It can also change lanes by itself.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a27044/tesla-autopilot-first-ride-almost-as-good-as-a-new-york-driver/

Most auto-makers will have the same thing available in 2018 models (showing they are still three years behind Tesla).

[jesmu84]

It's way more than that.

R&T tested it in heavy Manhattan traffic and it did fine.

It can also change lanes by itself.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a27044/tesla-autopilot-first-ride-almost-as-good-as-a-new-york-driver/

Most auto-makers will have the same thing available in 2018 models (showing they are still three years behind Tesla).

The lane change was obviously the "beyond" part. My car doesn't have those fancy functions I mentioned, so I don't have experience with them. Can you not run cars in Manhattan traffic with those other options?

[g0lden3agle]

The lane change was obviously the "beyond" part. My car doesn't have those fancy functions I mentioned, so I don't have experience with them. Can you not run cars in Manhattan traffic with those other options?

From my experience, Adaptive Cruise Control where it matches the speed of the car in front of you is only really useful on the highway.  Lane keeping assist is meant to alert you if you're drifting out of your lane, makes some attempt to keep you in the lane, but will eventually give in to your steering wheel commands (or lack thereof).

Like you said these are certainly the building blocks, but to take the next step requires a whole bunch of extra controls/sensors/etc.

[Spotcheck Billy]

https://www.youtube.com/v/MrwxEX8qOxA

In the video above, if you slow it down, you'll see the driver traveling at high speed with his hands off the steering wheel and busy filming. The car sounds the alarm to take control, which he doesn't acknowledge until it begins drifting naturally to the left — the driver saves himself just in time by jerking the steering wheel the other way.

There are countless videos like these appearing online, where reckless owners film themselves taking their hands off the steering wheel to show off how cool the feature is.

Make no mistake, if I owned a Tesla Model S, I'd probably be doing the exact same at least once somewhere on a back road near my house, but not on a busy highway.

Tesla is partially at fault here, as its marketing has billed the feature as an 'autopilot' instead of an assistive technology, which is how competitors have chosen to market their features.

It's bold of the company to put such an incredible new feature out to the world via nothing more than a software update, but it feels like a matter of time until it needs to restrict the feature, change its marketing or require drivers to take some sort of tutorial.

Based on the YouTube videos coming at a steady flow, it's not going to be long until someone misunderstanding the capability is killed, or injures someone outside the car.

There are features as part of Autopilot that attempt to stop humans from making mistakes like this. After a time elapses with no steering wheel grip, the car will alert that the driver needs to "take control immediately" or it'll pull over, but that warning can be deactivated again with a hold of just a few seconds.

Autopilot naturally has a number of kinks and isn't perfect, so it's kind of insane to see drivers literally letting the car take the wheel when that's not what it was built to do.

Of course humans are going to abuse it, but when we're talking about a car — something that can easily kill or injure multiple people at once — greater care needs to be taken with the human factor in the equation, before simply pushing a software update out to the a few hundred thousand cars.

[jesmu84]

https://www.youtube.com/v/MrwxEX8qOxA

"The car sounds the alarm to take control, which he doesn't acknowledge until it begins drifting naturally to the left — the driver saves himself just in time by jerking the steering wheel the other way."

I'm pretty sure Tesla would be fine in a lawsuit if something had happened to this driver, another driver or a pedestrian seeing as how the driver didn't follow the instructions. The driver blatantly ignored the car's own warning that the driver should be taking control.

[buckchuckler]

From my experience, Adaptive Cruise Control where it matches the speed of the car in front of you is only really useful on the highway.  Lane keeping assist is meant to alert you if you're drifting out of your lane, makes some attempt to keep you in the lane, but will eventually give in to your steering wheel commands (or lack thereof).

Like you said these are certainly the building blocks, but to take the next step requires a whole bunch of extra controls/sensors/etc.

You can now get features like adaptive cruise and lane departure warning and self parking on vehicles like the Jeep Cherokee and Chrysler 200 (that have MSRP in the low 30s), they don't need to be fancy, expensive vehicles.  The newer version of the adaptive cruise works great not only on the highway but also in traffic.  If the guy in front of you stops, it stops.  When he goes, you go, staying the same distance behind him.  It is pretty amazing stuff at a pretty reasonable price. 

[reinko]

My West Texas pair is too big to allow some computer to drive my Tacoma pickup.

[jesmu84]

Guy wasn't paying attention in front of him at all. Autopilot prevented a crash.

https://www.youtube.com/v/9X-5fKzmy38

Description:

Was travelling a little under 45 mph. There was some rain, but roads were pretty dry. I was watching stopped traffic to my right.

I did not touch the brake. Car did all the work. Sadly no audio, because I had an Uber passenger and Washington has strict privacy laws about recording conversations.