In the buzz over the Tesla autopilot update, a lot of commentary has appeared comparing this Autopilot with Google’s car effort and other efforts and what I would call a “real” robocar — one that can operate unmanned or with a passenger who is not paying attention to the road. We’ve seen claims that “Tesla has beaten Google to the punch,” but while the Tesla release is a worthwhile step forward, the two should not be confused as all that similar.
Tesla’s autopilot isn’t even particularly new. Several car makers have had similar products in their labs for several years, and some have released it to the public, at first in a “traffic jam assist” mode, but reportedly in full highway cruise mode outside the USA. The first companies to announce it were Cadillac with the “Super Cruise” and VW’s “Temporary Autopilot” — but they delayed that until much later.
Remarkably, Honda showed off a car ten years ago doing this sort of basic autopilot (without lane change) and sold only in the UK. They decided to discontinue the project, however. That this was actually promoted as an active product ten years ago will give you some clue as to how different this was from the bigger efforts.
Cruise products like these require constant human supervision. With regular cruise control, you could take your feet off the pedals, but might have to intervene fairly often either by using the speed adjust buttons or full control. Interventions could be several times a minute. Later came “Adaptive Cruise Control”, which still required you to steer and fully supervise, but would rarely require intervention on the pedals while driving on the highway — a few times an hour might be acceptable.
The new autopilot systems allow you to take your hands off the wheel but demand full attention. Users report needing to intervene rarely on some highways, but frequently on other roads. Once again, if you only need to intervene once an hour, the product could make your drive more relaxing.
Now consider a car that drives without supervision …
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