#autosteer

There’s a study you should read, and it delivers black eyes to both Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

You probably remember the fatal crash of a Tesla in Mountain View, California last March, a crash that occurred as the victim’s car cruised along in Autopilot mode. Unexpectedly, the vehicle steered itself out of a lane, impacting a highway divider at high speed. Once again, the effectiveness and safety of Tesla’s Autopilot system came under scrutiny as Tesla scrambled to defend itself. The automaker pointed to the findings of a 2017 NHTSA report released in the wake of a fatal crash from 2016. That study claimed the automaker’s Autosteer system, when introduced as part of the Autopilot suite of automated features, lowered Tesla crash rates by 40 percent.

Don’t believe everything you read, says R.A. Whitfield, director of Quality Control Systems. Whitfield filed a lawsuit and waited nearly two years to get to the bottom of that 40 percent figure.

The Tesla Model S is neither new nor surprising anymore. When the electric sedan entered the market in 2012, it shattered perceptions of electric cars and proved electric motoring viable.

Since then, Tesla has established itself as the go-to brand for geeks and early adopters. We’ve driven the Tesla Model S before, so there’s no need to talk about its most obvious features. But recent events make this a great time to talk about its second-most-important feature: Autopilot.

Is Tesla’s autonomous system any good? Can it be dangerous? How far is it from being truly autonomous? And, besides that, how did the Model S improve over the last few years?