Newer Tesla Motors Model S sedans will be able to steer and park themselves under certain conditions starting Thursday, the carmaker said, although Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk cautioned that drivers should keep holding the steering wheel.
“We’re being especially cautious at this stage so we’re advising drivers to keep their hands on the wheel just in case,” Musk told reporters at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. “Over time there will not be a need to have your hands on the wheel.”
Tesla unveils autopilot system
A Toyota Prius could automatically parallel park back in 2003.
This is quite a bit more substantial than just parallel parking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yCAZWdqX_Y
“Newer Tesla Motors Model S sedans will be able to steer and park themselves under certain conditions starting Thursday”
Wow, the people who bought Model S vehicles in the two years from start of production until last September are probably pissed.
Government regulators are on board with this ,I guess?
Doesn’t matter. The Tesla product is totally different with far more potential than the Prius.
They can simply trade up if they value the new features.
Was it an over-the-air update? Do all Praiuses park themselves now? Did a Prius driver act like a jerk this morning on my commute to work?
One of those is correct.
Yes, sort of. Multiple states allow self-driving cars now. No accident has ever been attributed to the self-driving car’s fault. This is the future. The problem is, how fast can we go to stop people driving altogether so the roads are safer?
Do Priuses cost $75K?
But lane keeping assist (which is marketed like that for liability reasons) has also been around for a few years and is in mass market brands like Ford. The lane switch is cool and new, but aside from that it’s marketing for features that exist on cars far down market from Tesla.
http://motorreview.com/lane-keeping-assist-explained/
I’m on board. Would love to have my car chauffeur me around town.
In the case of this demo car, $140,000. But in two years, you’ll be able to buy a $35,000 Tesla. When gas goes to $5 a gallon – as soon as North Dakota runs out I suppose – that will be a money saver in no time.
Plus, Teslas can be refueled in 15 minutes now at their stations. That’s pretty comparable to cars.
It’s not the same. Those low-end systems use a camera mounted on the windshield to monitor lane lines. The Tesla (like other experimental self-driven cars) is actually using multiple cameras and sensors to see all the vehicles surrounding it. It’s working with a vastly larger dataset as it’s driving down the road than the simple keep you in the lane stuff. Which is cool for sure, but not in any way comparable.
Wow, the people who bought the iPhone 6 are probably pissed now, too.
I’d love to have someone else’s car chauffeur me while I lease it to drive me around.
Not quite the same. To quote Tesla’s blog post about Autopilot, the Model S has “a forward radar, a forward-looking camera, 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors positioned to sense 16 feet around the car in every direction at all speeds, and a high-precision digitally-controlled electric assist braking system.” That’s a bit more complicated than a single camera that is just looking in front of the car.
It’s like comparing a mid-2000s smartphone to an early-80s mobile phone. They’re in the same family, sure, but one is a significant improvement over the other. (I lowballed the smartphone comparison because there’s still plenty of room for improvement)