Lane centering does not allow you you totally take you hands off the wheel and let the car drive itself. It’s just a small assist to help once you’ve almost already crossed into someone else’s lane. To be fair, autopilot is not supposed to be totally hands off, you’re supposed to still touch lightly touch the wheel every few seconds. You still need to monitor it.
Adaptive cruise control is pretty nice, but only useful on high speed highways.
They aren’t even comparable really. The Tesla is truly driving itself, while the other is just an assist in case you mess up. Also Tesla is beta testing the next version of autopilot that can drive in cities, and obey traffic signals.
But, we are rapidly approaching a time where lane assist & adaptive cruise are becoming ’standard’ on most vehicles and I think that’s great.
The lane keep assist has a wide band it allows the car to ride inside. At first I was disappointed in this, I wanted it to keep the car perfectly centered at all times. However it makes sense when you consider how the car detects that you're still alert and watching the road: you have to apply some torque to the steering wheel once in a while. If the car was perfectly centered already there would be no need to do that.
I think maybe a combination system that detects gaze and not only steering adjustments but even just touching the wheel without applying pressure would be better. It would allow to lane keep to do better while still ensuring driver attentiveness.
My girlfriend’s 2021 Outback has pretty amazing adaptive cruise, that will come to a complete stop as you describe. But it doesn’t work under a hard cut off of 35 miles an hour, and trying to use it outside of a highway situation is very nerve racking, which is why I said it’s not ‘useful’.
These technologies are great, and I’m excited to see the become more standard. But my point was to compare them to Tesla autopilot is apples and oranges. To think that they are the same, or they are designed for the same purposes is to not appreciate how darn good Autopilot really is.
When I drove mr brothers model 3 I couldn’t really tell a difference.
With their upgraded auto-pilot the car detects and automatically passes other drivers, takes exits, can completely handle complex interchanges by itself changing lanes to find exits while getting in the correct lane, slows while passing, gives trucks extra space on the highway, can handle complex construction zones without leaving it's often confusing lane, automatically exits the passing lane when not passing, etc.
Just the precision with which it can change lanes in dense traffic is so relieving. I hate changing lanes without it. I now spend my time keeping a close eye on idiot drivers while the car manages the lane change minutia - don't hit the car up front, make sure I have space, make sure no one is passing on the right, make sure no one is cutting off the space im trying to use from the 2nd from the right, look forward, look back, look forward again to check traffic, look back - never again.
I inherently trust the Tesla to drive better than me most of the time. I inherently trust the Tesla to drive better than 98% of other drivers.
it only took a couple of deaths to train their ai for construction sites.
> Just the precision with which it can change lanes in dense traffic is so relieving.
parked white trucks still a issue tho.
this whole thing reads like a marketing brochure, while conveniently ignoring the trail of deaths the tesla gung-ho attitude about releases brought.
So, accidents like you describe are not to be unexpected. People get complacent and think it really is a self driving car when it’s not. But let’s not discount the amazing level of sophistication Tesla has achieved in this system. It’s really impressive, and head and shoulders above anything else available.
That being said, I would wager that the high profile accidents you mention were due to drivers being negligent and abusing the system, where they should have been alert and paying attention like we all do when we drive.
You mentioned ‘bouncing off the lane edges’, and the reality is this is still where most companies are at. Which is fine because that’s all it’s supposed to be. It’s designed to be an assist when you mess up. Just a gentle nudge back to where you’re supposed to be.
I’m glad this stuff is becoming standard though it’s great tech. My point though is they are not meant to be ‘self diving’ is meant to be a safety ‘assist’.
Honestly, Elon still refuses to call it ‘self driving’ because the driver is still expected to be alert and monitor the autopilot. But the level of sophistication autopilot has is so far ahead of anything else, my point was it doesn’t make sense to compare them.
Pretty soon they will finish beta testing, and you will download an update, and the Tesla will be able to navigate complex traffic situations including cities and traffic signals.
To be fair, I saw something where Honda is supposedly developing a competitor to Tesla autopilot, but the current tech is not that. And the Honda autopilot will only be offered in Japan in a very limited quantity of some exotic $100K+ model. Who knows when those efforts will trickle down to be regular production vehicles available in America. But it’s available today in a Tesla. It’s really impressive what they have achieved!