Cruising down the highway at 60mph, just about dusk with auto pilot on, when I notice two deer run out in front of me about a hundred yards away. I instinctively tapped the brake just as the third one ran out. AP never set an alarm. If I hadn’t hit the brake, I might have whacked the third one.
it also doesn't see cats. Saw one coming out of the bushes one night but decided to see what AP would do. AP didn't react
The list of things that AutoPilot is expected to detect: cars, trucks. The list of things that AutoPilot is NOT expected to detect: every other physical thing in the universe. There, that should clear it up.
This is why it is important to still be paying attention even if Autopilot is active, which you were. One day Autopilot will be better at spotting dangers such as this.
My X always see trucks as cars, and it hates Porsche. Most times, it displays a Porsche 997/911/Cayman as a truck.
This is really a function for the automatic emergency braking system, not Autopilot (TACC or steering assist). I expect Tesla will improve it's AEB system the way Volvo recently has with 'large animal detection' on a few of it's newer models: https://gizmodo.com/volvo-is-adding-large-animal-detection-to-cars-because-1765478063
Well to be honest, a car that doesn't stop for deer in pitch blackness and has AEB and autosteer is $88k. Maybe cheaper if you don't want all wheel steering, all wheel drive, reclining rear seats, and heated/cooled 5-mode massage in all seats.
Elon was not so confident on the moose back in 2016. From a quarterly conference call “Yeah it’s a good question. Actually, it should work for something like a moose – because it is quite a big mass, but it may not work for say a small deer. A small deer probably would not trigger braking, but a moose I think would. I’m not 100% sure of that, but I think it would trigger on a moose.”
request for feature, if it doesn't detect livestock in the path of tesla, want tesla's headlights to turn red and go into kill mode may be as an easter egg.