Tesla was not successful with creating self-driving cars safely. German officials have been calling the attention of the car maker because according to some researches, the autopilot mode of its cars is dangerous.
Tesla's Autopilot Considered As Hazardous
According to Tech Crunch, Germany's Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) said that Tesla's autopilot feature can bring danger to its users. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is disagreeing with the research and said that its company's self-driving cars are safe.
Tesla launched its self-driving cars a year ago. The car maker said that its self-driving cars have driven more than 130 million miles before a reported accident happened. Insurance Institute for Highway safety said that the company's report regarding its cars is considered safer than manually driven cars.
The institute listed three flaws of Tesla's autopilot mode. The first issue is that it cannot alert the driver when the car the situation is beyond its control. Second, the sensors cannot detect if there are cars behind when it wants to steer or wants to change lanes. Lastly, the emergency brakes cannot react accordingly, in a report on The Car Connection.
Tesla's Autopilot Needs To Be Improved
Magazine Consumer Reports said that Tesla's autopilot was released prematurely and too early for its consumers to use its cars.
With different critics judging its autopilot mode, Tesla said that an improved version, Autpilo 8.0, has been created. Consumer Reports commented that it is better than before, but there are still some improvements to be made.
Included in its improvements are warnings when the driver removes his hands on the steering wheel more than one minute compared to the previous three minutes. Second, the warnings are more visible and if the driver ignored this, the car will automatically turn off and lastly, autopilot mode is selective on where it can be activated to avoid accidents, according to Green Car Reports.
Autopilot mode needs to be given focus by the car makers to ensure safety with its users.
