Draft 2# Product Summary and Analysis
The article “Tesla Autopilot
Self-Driving Automobile Technology” (Tung 2018) introduces how
Tesla vehicle uses its forward-facing radar and ultrasonic sensors around the car
to navigate and cruise through traffic with ease. Through cruise control, the
radar and sensor on the car can track the distance and positions of the traffic
ahead and adjust its speed accordingly. However, Tesla Autopilot only aids
drivers partially, it cannot work well when the car is travelling at a speed of
20MPH and below, some examples when the driver should be driving instead of autopilot is when it drives in residential zones with many streetlights and
stop signs. According to Tung, when driving through residential areas at low speed, the driver
must put their hands on the steering wheel, if the steering wheel’s sensor
doesn’t sense the driver’s hand, it will alert the driver via audible and
visually. The car will slowly come to a stop if it still doesn’t sense the
driver’s hand on the wheel. In the near future, Tesla will upgrade its car’s
system to allow it to park itself into a parking slot even when the driver is
not in the car.
The necessity of the Tesla Autopilot has been debated widely, with detractors citing accidents caused by
the autopilot itself. For instance, according to "BBC News, tesla accident" in Jan 2018, a Tesla car was driving along
the road and crashed into a fire engine that was parked by the roadside. This
type of accident will be avoided if it was a person driving the vehicle instead
of autopilot. According to "SlashGear, tesla autopilot accident rate" statistics show that from Jan – Apr 2018, Tesla car with
autopilot on, recorded “1 accident for every 2.87million miles” and without
autopilot, “1 accident for every 1.76million miles”. By comparison, National
highway traffic safety administration (NHTSA) recent data shows that “in the
United States there is an automobile crash every 436,000miles”. This
factor shows that the Tesla Autopilot System helped to prevent accidents from
happening drastically, Tesla also prompts the driver to keep their hands on the
wheel and keep a lookout on the traffic as drivers are not supposed to fully
depend on the auto-driving system yet. Tesla has since upgraded its software to
recognize different objects clearly to prevent accidents like this to happen.
Tesla uses electricity-powered
engines to function; this means that it's more environmentally friendly as
compared to conventional petrol/diesel cars. Exhaust emissions from
petrol/diesel cars create harmful air pollution for the environment.
Furthermore, the electric vehicle engine has fewer moving parts, therefore
requires less regular servicing as compared to petroleum engines. Drivers will
never have to travel to a gas station to top up petrol, instead, they can just
charge their car when they reach home.
Tesla just updated its software
to “version 10.0”. Its new feature “smart summon” allows the car to
automatically park itself into empty parking lots as long as the owner is in
its line of sight. Tesla can upgrade itself like most smartphone/computer does,
as long as it is connected to the WIFI, it can automatically update “over-the-air”.
Tesla drivers and passenger can enjoy cool features brought by the update, for
example, the V10.0, driver, and passengers can enjoy Netflix while the car
drives itself in the highway as well as playing games while stuck in traffic
from the 17’ touch screen display mounted in the vehicle.
In the future, I believe there will be no petrol car as
electrical car are much better in every way, especially electrical car that
includes a self-driving system, after years of improving, I believe the
autopilot system will be so advanced that little to none traffic accidents will
happen.
Retrieved from:
Ergon Energy, the benefit of electric vehicle
Tesla.co, software updates
Business insider ( Tesla updates it's software)
SlashGear, Telsa autopilot accident rate
BBC News, Tesla design failure
Megan Tung. Retrieved on 19 September 2019
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