Jalopnik:
Hey, who likes riddles? Here’s one! What’s the difference between KITT from Knight Rider’s self-driving system and a Tesla on Autopilot? The answer? Nothing! They’re both fictional when it comes to being fully self-driving and if you sleep in your Autopilot-mode Tesla you’re an idiot endangering everyone around you. Also, only one could be used while David Hasselhoff enjoyed a cheeseburger.
With this in mind, this video of a guy sleeping at the wheel of his Tesla Model X should be even more infuriating.
This guy should never be allowed behind the wheel of a car ever again.
This guy was dumb, but do we know the whole story? Maybe the guy had a medical emergency or fell asleep on accident (where he would’ve certainly crashed if he were driving a car without autopilot).
Of course, stupidity knows no boundaries.
This is also a phenomenon of the transition period we have recently entered into with Tesla Autopilot. There obviously has to be a “field testing” phase in which actual drivers learn to use the system, and in which Tesla learns further, beyond its own internal testing.
We test drove a Model X on local roads in Pinellas County, Fla. and we found Autopilot to be fascinating and intriguing, in spite of its limitations.
You definitely have to be awake and ready at a moment’s notice to take over control of the vehicle, as there are countless scenarios out in the wild which the system is not yet able to accommodate.
We don’t yet own a Tesla automobile, but we definitely intend to be owners in the next several years.
In the mean time, we just purchased a 2018 Honda Accord Touring which has “Adaptive Cruise Control”, which I enjoy immensely! It does a decent job of following the car ahead as long as it stays “locked on”. It will come to a complete stop if the followed car does so. And you simply click the “Resume” button once the other car’s wheels start turning, in order to resume following.
I find it works well in stop and go traffic and relieves a good amount of muscle action, allowing me to concentrate more on traffic.
One curious comment I received some years ago from a BMW salesman was that few of his customers used cruise control! Those, I believe, would be the “technophobes”. I’m definitely not one of those.
I believe it takes a fairly high level of enthusiasm, if not courage, to embrace technology and automation, taking care along the way to learn well the associated technology and principles, so that one can “take the controls” , when necessary, in order to fully enjoy and benefit from the experience.
We know this isn’t fake, how?