Tesla fails a DIY pedestrian avoidance test
When Tesla showed off its semi-autonomous “Autopilot” features the world was pretty impressed and a little freaked out. At first it was hard to believe that yes, you could take your hands off the wheel and let your car worry about avoiding traffic and maintaining safe speeds. Fast forward to now and it seems many Tesla owners are a little too comfortable with letting their car do the driving.
But even though the company has always stressed its autonomous features as being in “beta” and not reliable enough for a driver to stop paying attention, no one ever really tried to figure out just how good Tesla’s AI is at avoiding pedestrians. That is until one youtube user named “KmanAuto” and his much too loyal friend “Mike” decided to do just that.
In a video found by Autoblog, KmanAuto and Mike hold a short series of tests using his Model S. The tests all involve Kman driving toward his very unprotected friend under the guidance of the car’s automatic systems. All three of the main autonomous features are tested including Summon, Traffic Aware Cruise Control (will automatically maintain safe distances between you and surrounding traffic) and Autopilot(full steering, braking, and speed control).
Each test involved Mike standing in the vehicle’s path as it cruised toward him at the minimum speed required for the autonomous mode. As for the results? Well you can watch the video here, but if you don’t have 5 minutes to spare let’s summarize it.
While in Summon mode, the Tesla was able to successfully detect and avoid the pedestrian, applying brakes and steering away. Since Summon is intended for parking and moves at slow speeds it’s not as surprising that it was able to react in a timely and appropriate manner.
The other modes, moving at the minimum Autopilot speed of 18 mph (28 km/h), the car detected that Mike was in the car’s path, but the vehicle neither applied brakes nor tried to change its deadly path. When detecting an upcoming danger the car will alert the driver with a flashing notification and alert sound. Luckily Mike was quick enough to recognize when the car wouldn’t stop and get out of the way.
The tests, while not stringent enough to prove much, show that in real world scenarios, the Autopilot program has a long way to go before you can take trips without touching the wheel. If you’ve got a Tesla now or are looking forward to getting one when the Model 3 hits roads, keep in mind that while we are close to true autonomous driving, we are still many years away from the tech is good enough to fully replace human drivers.