Tesla will tell you these features are meant for safety and convenience—to alleviate the tedium of long freeway commutes and as an extra set of virtual eyes on the road, vigilant of impending trouble. But if that’s all this was, the company could have forgone the “wow” factor of features like automatic lane changing and simply labeled its technology “adaptive cruise control,” as other automakers have. What Musk is really selling is a tantalizing sneak preview of our self-driving future. The primary appeal of owning a Tesla with autopilot is not the slight chance that it will save you from an accident at some point. It’s the heady feeling of being among the first to possess a dazzling new technology.
The problem is, when used properly, autopilot isn’t all that dazzling once the novelty wears off. No one can tell that the car is steering itself if you have your hands on the wheel the whole time. Worse, it doesn’t actually save you much work if you have to remain constantly alert to keep autopilot from suddenly steering you into a wall. If anything, keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road while autopilot steers the car is even more boring than actually driving—which makes it all the more difficult to pay full attention…
In practice, however, Tesla’s autopilot doesn’t just complement the efforts of the human drivers who use it—it alters their behavior. It strengthens the temptation to check your email while stuck in traffic. It might even be the thing that convinces a drunk person at a party to go ahead and try to drive home. If Tesla can’t successfully clamp down on autopilot abuses via software update, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these very arguments advanced in a slew of lawsuits in the coming months.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member