Late Night AutoPilot: The Dangers of Dozing

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Besides Supercharger stops potentially allowing you to nap*, try being as observant as you should be when not using Autopilot. There's nothing stopping you continuing to watch the behavior of other cars, as well as the movement of your own car. It might be easier to stay aware than when having to deal more the mechanics of driving.

* Those of you lucky enough to be able to sleep in a seat.

 

[Eric S]

It might be easier to stay aware than when having to deal more the mechanics of driving.

Enough of you are saying something similar to this that it must be true. Hard for me to grok, but, then, I've never been in a driver-assisted car. So I'll take everybody's word for it. Thanks!

 

[GaryREM]

Wow, will it really do that? Have you tested it, and this is what it did? I have never had the stones to try it...

 

[Eric S]

I won't click on the tragedy porn of the head-on collision video, but re: the "fail to comply" video above it (btw, you can skip the final 30 secs).....

The car just slows and stops right in the road? Doesn't pull over? What if you've had a medical problem or something?

 

[Electroman]

Enough of you are saying something similar to this that it must be true. Hard for me to grok, but, then, I've never been in a driver-assisted car. So I'll take everybody's word for it. Thanks!

Of course if you need to know how bad and unsafe Tesla AP is you only need to ask or read posts from folks who have never used AP or owned one and learnt all about it from WSJ articles. There are plenty of them in this forum.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I have a return-home journey of 1h30m after a concert (teenage kids' school). I've been driving that, each time there is a concert, for 10 years generally leaving around 10pm. I have frequently had difficulty fighting sleep during the last 10 miles - windows down, radio loud, driving on the cats'eyes, leaning right forwards ... the same, late evening, journey with AutoPilot has not had me fighting sleep at the end of the journey at all. I was sceptical of all the "I'm definitely more relaxed at the end of an AP journey than I used to be" posts wanting to be convinced myself! but it definitely seems that way to me too.

 

[GaryREM]

I won't click on the tragedy porn of the head-on collision video, but re: the "fail to comply" video above it (btw, you can skip the final 30 secs).....

The car just slows and stops right in the road? Doesn't pull over? What if you've had a medical problem or something?

As far as I understand, the car attempts to pull off to the side of the road.

Maybe Tesla gets an alert that something has happened. I know they seem to be aware of accidents.

But since most cars would simply have you crash in those cases, this is a huge step up.

 

[Eric S]

Easy to test, late at night on a vacant multi-lane road. That's the first thing I'd do, in fact....