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Although there are a lot of companies out there testing autonomous vehicle features like lane assist and smart cruise control, Tesla was the first to provide a near-fully driverless motorway option to Model S owners. While it's had some hiccups, CEO of Tesla Elon Musk, has announced that it has halved the number of crashes for regular drivers.
Made available to Model S owners at the tail end of 2015, Tesla's autopilot feature combines automated braking, lane assist and smart cruise control features, to make it possible to drive stretches of motorway without touching the wheel. Tests have shown it performing well for the most part, though there have been a few incidents that forced Tesla to call it semi-autonomous, rather than completely so.
However in recent months, as more people gain access to the feature and its usage becomes more common, we've seen videos of it reacting very quickly to avoid collisions, potentially saving lives in the process. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5rraWJq6E']
While some of these potential crashes would no doubt have been avoided by a human driver also, by the numbers, the autopilot mode has made Model S owners 50 per cent less likely to get into a crash than without it. This number was announced by Tesla founder and CEO, Elon Musk, himself last week at a Norwegian government conference.
“The probability of having an accident is 50% lower if you have Autopilot on. Even with our first version. So we can see basically what’s the average number of kilometers to an accident – accident defined by airbag deployment. Even with this early version, it’s almost twice as good as a person.”
Most impressive is that the Model S wasn't built with this in mind. Just imagine what a purpose-built autonomous car could do.
As Gizmodo points out, this number is likely inflated by best-case-scenario usage, the fact that the sample size is quite small and that motorway driving is traditionally not the most accident-prone of roadways. But even if it's a few per cent points, that's still a major achievement. Autonomous driving is making people less likely to crash and that's a very good thing.
Now we just need the Model 3 to launch and we can all begin enjoying these fancy future features.
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KitGuru Says: As much as I'm sure we'll all miss some aspects of driving one day, considering how much time is spent being impeded by other drivers, I doubt I'll be that unhappy to cede control of my car to the robots of the future.
Big BS! Better lincence tests can reduce accidents to 1/3 and if no one drives on alcohol or drugs, that could reduce accidents to 1/4 or less. Why the govs all over the world don’t take measures for so long? That’s the thing to discuss and apply pressure for. Not let faulty or hackable AI take over our lives.
To really prevent a drunk person from ever being able to drive would need a fully sensored car that drives based on software controls and lockouts. If detects alcohol in the driver’s breath, visual inspections, sweat tests etc, the software locks the car out from the driver until someone fully sober takes the controls. The software would be secured through encryption and all that to prevent hacking attempts. Of course pro hacker markets would spring up and would provide the service to hack these cars and make them not so fool proof anymore. That’s the first problem.
There is also the question of what if a drunk person’s life is in immediate danger and they need to make a quick dash to safety somewhere in the vehicle, if the software is too unforgiving this person’s life is in jeopardy. There are problems to such draconian controls in place.
I agree human input is always the safer overall option more than it being taken away through partial autonomous controls. Or maybe we should all lose the ability to drive totally, no more driver seats, it should be more like a personal sized tram/train thingy that drives for itself with no obvious driver panels or controls. You just tell the destination and it goes.
Sure but you can’t eliminate the human factor now matter how good the licensing is. People WILL text while driving, or get into arguments with passengers or be distracted by screaming kids, or get into arguments with other drivers, or drive tired or drive in a hurry… the list goes on and on. Ticketing and licensing helps people helps but you can’t eliminate human nature.
Autopilot on a motorway totally makes sense – I’ve had a go of one, it’s eerie but you get used to it. In fact when you bring it to it’s logical conclusion that every car on the motorway can be driven autonomously it means we can do away with the silly 70mph speed limit because autopilot driven cars may have faster reaction times than people.
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