Four hundred miles with Tesla’s autopilot forced me to trust the machine
From the article: <i>&quot;Auto-steer had to wait for the freeway, where I toggled it on. Unfortunately, I toggled it right back off. The portion of I-45 near my home is undergoing a multi-year $6 billion rebuild, with a long stretch spanning several exits being destroyed, reconfigured, widened, and otherwise &quot;improved.&quot; The result is a multi-mile segment of road that snakes back and forth across what will eventually be both sides of the finished project. For now, there&#x27;s no consistent surfacing, no real lane markers, and nothing for the lane-keeping system to see.&quot;</i><p><i>&quot;Lane keeping was almost excellent. The car kept itself squarely planted in the middle of the lane without ping-ponging between the edges like some earlier systems did. The car would still sometimes &quot;lunge&quot; at exit ramps when lane markings would fall away to the right or left, though the behavior was never enough to make me grab the wheel and disengage.&quot;</i><p>So Tesla just has lane keeping and smart cruise control, like everybody else. NHTSA Level 2.  But they&#x27;re way ahead in PR.<p>Google can handle construction, changed lanes, and offramps, city streets, and follows navigation directions. They&#x27;re NHTSA Level 3.<p>Handoff from automation to human in emergency situations is still a big problem. Here&#x27;s such a case. [1] Car with autopilot rear-ended stopped car on freeway. Why?  The driver tapped the brake while approaching the stopped car. This disengaged the autopilot, including the emergency braking function, under the assumption the driver was now in charge. Tesla claims the driver should have understood that, as of firmware version 6.2, the auto-braking function was disabled by any manual braking.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;cars&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;another-driver-says-teslas-autopilot-failed-to-brake-tesla-says-otherwise&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;cars&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;another-driver-says-tesl...</a>