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Zorro

(15,740 posts) Thu Oct 20, 2016, 10:27 PM Oct 2016

Tesla releases video of fully autonomous Model X electric car

Tesla announced on Wednesday that from now on all of its electric cars will be built with the components required to turn them into fully autonomous vehicles at a later date. Now chief executive, Elon Musk, has released a video showing what that really means.

The video shows a Tesla Model X driving out of a garage, picking up a human driver – who is required to be in the driving seat for the car to legally self-drive in the US – and then driving itself around some public roads, navigating junctions and highways before returning to a parking lot, letting out the human driver and then going off to park itself.

It’s an impressive feat for a car that shows no visible signs of the typical paraphernalia required to pull off the stunt. Google’s car, for instance, has a large spinning lidar on the top and various other visible signs of automation.

Musk said that the release of the video was the cause of Tesla’s delay announcing the inclusion of the eight cameras, 12 ultrasonars and radar being embedded in each new Tesla car.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/tesla-releases-video-of-fully-autonomous-model-x-electric-car

Pretty impressive video at the link -- even seems to recognize stoplights. Autonomous driving will be here sooner than most people think.

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Tesla releases video of fully autonomous Model X electric car (Original Post) Zorro Oct 2016 OP

From what I've experienced, it's not a comfortable ride. ffr Oct 2016 #2

ffr

(22,670 posts)

2. From what I've experienced, it's not a comfortable ride.

Reply to Zorro (Original post)

Fri Oct 21, 2016, 02:24 AM

Oct 2016

The steering jerks ever so slightly continuously left and right as it navigates highway lanes and seems to demand that you must always change lanes when taking the highway/freeway exit, assuming there are two lanes exiting. It also brakes unnecessarily on open road if it detects a vehicle traveling too slowly in adjacent lanes, as a safety precaution I imagine. None of these actions are smooth or follow normal driving logical. They are all annoying to everyone in the vehicle; "why is it doing that?"

The technology has a long long long way to go. Just about everything else is damn cool about the vehicle though. The acceleration and torque are unreal for an SUV-like vehicle. Really fun to drive normally.

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