Video evidence of Tesla Autopilot anticipating a crash two cars ahead

7 years, 3 months ago - 2 January 2017, Autoblog
Video evidence of Tesla Autopilot anticipating a crash two cars ahead
Tesla's latest version of Autopilot, part of the automaker's 8.0 software update, is supposed to be able to create a picture of the world using the onboard radar sensor.

That includes seeing not just the vehicles on all sides, but those beyond – you can think of it as the car seeing through other objects. This dashcam video from The Netherlands claims to show the car doing just that and "seeing" an accident about to happen ahead of the car it's following. The Tesla appears to begin slowing before the car in front even hits its brakes.

We're calling this evidence, not proof, of the new system's radar x-ray vision because the video doesn't provide the whole picture. For instance, we don't know what caused the Autopilot system to issue the warning to the driver (it could have been a vehicle in a neighboring lane, say). It's also not known whether the driver intervened or the accident avoidance was all down to the car. It does seem like solid evidence, and the Twitter user who uploaded the video claims there was no intervention.

If this is indeed all legitimate, it shows what Autopilot can do in a situation where the driver might not have been able to react as swiftly – depending on the driver's point of view, he or she might not have been able to see the makings of an accident ahead.