Autopilot Technology Will Hand Control Over To Cars on "Major Roads"

For many people, autonomous technology (aka "self-driving" technology) in cars means a dramatic increase in quality of life. For instance, instead of focusing on the mundane task of driving through city traffic, a person with a self-driving vehicle could read, play with their kids or even sleep.

Other people, however, worry about the prospect of taking the task of driving out of the hands of humans and placing it into the control of computers. What is to stop someone, they ask, from hacking into a self-driving car and driving it off the road?

No matter which side of this debate you fall on, Tesla, along with numerous other companies (including the likes of Google and Mercedes-Benz), is pushing ahead full-throttle with their self-driving technology. Numerous leaders in technology have stated that it is just a matter of time before self-driving vehicles are ubiquitous on our roads - Elon Musk, in fact, has gone as far as to say that he believes that it will be illegal one day to manually operate a self-driving vehicle.

Earlier this week, Elon Musk revealed that autonomous technology will be coming to Tesla's Model S sedans this summer via a software update. According to Musk, the Model S sedans will be able to utilize an auto-pilot mode on "major roads".

Some analysts and sector observers, however, wonder if the company will be legally able to unveil their self-driving technology at all. According to some, current regulations are ambiguous at best and Tesla may run into regulatory issues if they try to push ahead with their summer software update.

Tesla, however, has said that "nothing in our autopilot system is in conflict with current regulations", and that the software update is about "releasing the driver from tedious tasks so they can focus and provide better input."

Source: NYTimes.com - Elon Musk Says That Self-Driving Tesla Cars Will Be In the U.S. By Summer

Filed under: General Knowledge