Many companies are working on driverless cars. Tesla has even started testing the Autopilot feature in the car. However, this feature is not yet functional in all places or completely. In such a situation, the question also arises, are driverless cars safe? Tesla may describe this feature as the best, but people who have had accidents with it, blame it for death.
Actually, a Tesla car hit a 15-year-old boy in California, Died. After which his family members sued the company. The family says Tesla's Autopilot feature is responsible for their son's death. Tesla's Autopilot feature has also caused an accident in 2019.
Autopilot means driving the car without the help of the driver. Autopilot technology works based on several different inputs. For example, it connects to a direct satellite for maps. Where the passenger wants to go, this bar is selected on the map. After this, the route is selected.
When the car is on autopilot mode, along with satellite, it also gets input from the cameras provided around the car. That is, there is no object in front or behind the car, right or left. The car moves left-right or stops when there is an object.
The car also has a number of sensors, which help keep the car in the road lane and read the signal. In autopilot mode, the speed of the car goes up to 112 kmph. However, in this technique, many times the sensors stop working due to which an accident occurs.
The 6-second video recorded by Tesla shows that its Autopilot feature can steer the car and increase its speed also apply brakes. However, on many occasions when an accident is about to happen with the car, then even the driver cannot control it. The company is preparing to launch its updated 'Full Self Driving' software. However, due to road accidents, this technology has come under the scanner. The US Auto Safety Agency has reopened investigations into 27 Tesla car crashes.
The accident that hit Maldonado happened just 6 km from Tesla's car factory. The matter has become the subject of litigation against the company. The company's concern about this technology has increased due to the increase in the number of accidents caused by the Autopilot feature. Many questions are also being raised about this by Tesla's competitor car companies. This technology can also lead to major accidents because there are cyclists and pedestrians along with motorists on the road.
Regarding the accident in the city of Houston, Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk says that the data log shown so far clearly shows that autopilot was not enabled in this car and the FSD (Full Self-driving) system was not purchased. In addition, the standard autopilot required lane lines to start, which was not on this lane.
Raj Rajkumar, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who focuses on autonomous driving technology, said: "This monitoring technology is fundamentally weak because it's easy to deceive. It doesn't do continuous monitoring. The radar would have detected the pickup truck. So it wouldn't have been a collision."
Musk has now acknowledged that developing a safe and reliable self-driving car is a formidable challenge. He wrote on social media that generalized self-driving is a difficult problem, as it requires solving a large part of real-world AI. Didn't expect it to be so difficult, but looking back, the difficulty is clearly visible.
Elon Musk has always defended the autopilot feature. The company has cited its figures to claim that cars running with the system involved in fewer accidents per mile than other cars. He wrote on social media that accidents on autopilot are rare.
Consumer Reports said in May that one of its engineers was able to turn on Autopilot at Tesla and slip into the back seat while the car was moving. The California Highway Patrol said in May that it had arrested a man who was getting out of the driving seat of his Tesla Model 3 while the car was moving.
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