I recently just saw the video that I have posted below, which is a compilation of people who have recorded their Tesla’s autopilot system detecting crashes, many times before a human would have. The biggest misconception I hear is that autonomous vehicles or driverless cars rely only on GPS and if the map is bad they will take you off a cliff. This is simply not true, the cars instead use cameras which, in real time, assess everything around you, how far it is and what it would take to hit it.
The autopilot system is doing thousands of calculations a second to make sure that the car and the driver is as safe as possible. These are things that no matter how smart or good a driver, humans will never be able to compete with. Even in version one of the autopilot system, Tesla’s that were driven for research purposes had far fewer accidents per mile than a regular driver would. In addition the few times that accidents did occur, they were usually caused by rear ending or another driver’s fault.
The new autopilot system that will be available with the newer cars has also been teased with a video, which I will put below. In this video as well you can see the car’s perspective and what it is actually seeing every second that passes. With the new cars there will be eight cameras all doing what you are seeing the one camera do on the screen. Each camera monitors a location and makes sure that all objects, whether it is a tree, a biker, a person ect, stay far away from the car. In situations where you least expect it, this functionality could really save your ass.
The driving experience in general I believe is going to be fantastic. In addition the cars that they are offering it on are really not that expensive if you take into account what is being offered. The model S is starting at around 35,000 new which will include the newer v2 autopilot and the ability to be upgraded in future patches, which is really the cool part. Like if you were buying a digital game with bugs, your automobile can be patched to fix and better the experience.
I for one am really excited to see what not only Tesla, but other auto manufacturers can do in the next few years. I still like what Tesla has been saying, which is full automation by 2020, but who knows if they can hit that target. Overall I like the direction the whole industry is going and I hope we will be getting more teasers and prototypes for the cars of the future to come soon.
-Calaber24p