It wasn’t too long ago that Tesla introduced Autopilot mode to its cars. The feature is not marketed as a self-driving feature, but basically a more advanced version of cruise control where it can actually help cars stay in it lane instead of just moving in a straight line. Unsurprisingly videos soon popped up of drivers doing some pretty silly things with it.
So much so that during an earnings call Q&A session with Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla revealed that they would be making some changes to when the feature can be enabled. Basically this is done to “minimize the possibility of people doing crazy things with it,” which we have to admit sounds a good and very welcome idea.
Unfortunately Musk did not detail what those changes are, but presumably it would force the driver to keep their hands on the wheel. Right now the system works by having the drivers just touch the wheel lightly. This is so that in the event something goes wrong, the driver can quickly grab the wheel and readjust themselves, but like we said some videos have surfaced where drivers are driving with their hands completely off just to show off the feature.
That being said while there are some reckless drivers, a video surfaced last week which showed how the autopilot mode of Tesla managed to prevent a head-on collision by braking in time.
Filed in . Read more about Tesla.