drive safer
WHAT COULD BE SAFER ON THE ROAD THAN A CAR THAT’S AWARE OF ITS SURROUNDINGS?
Recently, Tesla (the electric- car company founded by Elon Musk) launched its new Autopilot feature – in version 7.0 of its Model S software. While it’s still in beta mode and a long way from making the flagship Model S completely autonomous, it offers the first glimpse of what it’s like to drive a consumer-available selfdriving car. The tech is really all about safety: firstly, making you more aware of your environment and the vehicles around you; secondly, giving you a much- needed break on those longer drives. So how does it work?
The idea is simple, and it works a little like cruise control – except Tesla’s cruise control uses cameras to make it adaptive. What does that mean? Well, using the dial on the lever below the indicator, you set how many car lengths you want to be behind the car in front – it ranges from one to seven (turn anti- clockwise to decrease). You use the same lever to set a speed by flicking it up and down. And sure enough, as the car in front slows down, so do you – according to the car-length distance you’ve set. If it moves out of the way, you’ll speed up to the speed you set until you meet another car in front. And thanks to the car’s cameras, you can see a graphic representation on the dash of how far away the car in front of you is. It’s a very different yet intuitive driving experience.
But where things get really interesting is with the Autosteer feature. That’s right, the Model S will steer itself. Combined with the Adaptive Cruise Control, this means you can pretty much sit on a motorway (and this is designed purely for motorway driving at the moment) without your hands on the wheel or your feet on the pedals. Using the same lever, just flick back twice and Autosteer is engaged – signalled by the lanes on the dash display in front turning blue. And it works brilliantly.
drove a stretch of the M4 with no hands on the wheel and no feet on the pedals. You’re not actually supposed to take your hands off the wheel, but it works. At first, it’s a little terrifying, but it
soon became second nature – and made motorway driving less tiring. We’re not saying we took our focus away from the road – we always had someone in the car keeping an eye on traffic – but the car very much took control, going around bends and keeping dead centre in the middle of the lane (it uses its cameras to read the lane markings). And combined with the Adaptive Cruise Control, it really felt as though the car was doing all the work. It’s strange yet gratifying.
But what about changing lanes? Well, the Tesla will do that for you as well. Pop your hands on the wheel in Autosteer mode (it won’t work otherwise), flick the indicator and the car will use its sensors to determine when it’s safe to move into another lane – and then turn the wheel for you.
At any point, you can of course cancel Adaptive Cruise Control and Autosteer. Just put your foot on the brake and they’ll turn off, handing control back to you.
All of the settings for Autosteer, lane- departure warnings and so on can be set up using the Model S’s gigantic 17-inch touchscreen. Just navigate to Settings and then Driver Assistance – here, you can choose to enable or disable certain features depending on your preference (but you can only enable or disable Autosteer when the car is in Park).
There’s another interesting feature with the new Tesla update – Autopark. This aims to take the pain out of parallel parking by – yes, you guessed it – parking the car itself.
When driving around cities at low speeds, the Model S identifies if there’s a parking space available –a ‘P’ appearing on the instrument panel on the dash. The guide appears on the touchscreen, asking you to move to one car length in front of the car you wish to park behind. Then, once Autopark is activated, the car takes over, slowly and cleverly steering you into even the tightest of spots. Those who’ve ever struggled with parallel parking will find it amazing (and you get some excellent looks from pedestrians as you park while getting your stuff ready to leave the car).
Sure, it’s not a completely autonomous car, but this Model S provides a glimpse into the future of motoring. And can’t wait to see what happens next.