I’ve enjoyed Tesla Enhanced Autopilot on my Tesla Model 3, including the new Navigate on Autopilot feature. Autopilot requires human supervision, or else something bad is likely to happen. I believe that the combination of Autopilot and a human driver is better than a human driver alone. The human managing Autopilot has more bandwidth to monitor traffic and things approaching from the side. It reduces stress and helps the driver stay fresh.
With the current Autopilot the car sets a safe following distance with the car ahead, and does so superbly with extreme reliability. It also steers the car along the road just fine on controlled access highways, and with fair results on curvy rural highways. Basically, all the driver has to do us just watch for irregularities in the traffic and to pay attention to steering on tight curves. This is easy.
I have some reservations about supervising the Full Self-Driving Capability features slated for release this year. The car will do a lot more things to watch out for. It will change lanes on controlled-access highways. It will stop for traffic signals and stop signs. It will merge and exit roundabouts. Presumably it will handle city driving. That’s a lot to watch out for. It’s one thing to make sure the car keeps doing what it is doing, and another when the car starts making turns, yielding and switching lanes. Not only does the driver have to monitor the traffic, but also what the Autopilot is doing. Stay tuned.
MIT has been studying self-driving for some time, and they have just published a paper on the “Human Side of Tesla Autopilot.”