My colleague and I got to take a TESLA Autopilot test drive on highways, curvy California roads, and by the ocean. In case you don’t live in Palo Alto (where the Whole Foods parking lot is full of these things)… the TESLA Autopilot feature is basically a button to turn the car into autonomous driving mode. So the car will speed up or slow down based on what’s in front of it, and supposedly stay in the lane or follow the turns of a road automatically.
Autopilot classified ~30% of other cars, and 1% of bicyclists
The purpose of this post is to share my first impressions of this system, particularly regarding its human-machine interfacing. I’m concerned that some will ignore its limitations and put biker lives at risk; we found the Autopilot’s agnostic behavior around bicyclists to be frightening. But as a human-in-the-loop system, this car’s features would impress Iron Man.