OK, everyone, repeat after me: Tesla’s new Autopilot feature is not a substitute for driving. That nonetheless hasn’t stopped many Tesla drivers from relying too heavily on Autopilot and posting videos of scary experiences of it on YouTube. Here are some of the best/worst examples we could find.
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YouTuber RockTreeStar flat-out admits that his car gave him warnings to keep his hands on the steering wheel while he was recording a video of Autopilot in action. When a car on the other side of the road approached, the Tesla suddenly turned toward the oncoming vehicle, forcing the driver to grab the wheel and steer it away.
Meanwhile, YouTuber mrksvideos found that Autopilot worked perfectly well on the highway. The danger came when he tried to exit the highway and the car tried to take a sudden wrong turn at a fork in the road. Thankfully he alertly grabbed the wheel to avoid disaster:
This driver, meanwhile, really pulls off a trifecta of dumb: He’s using autopilot while it’s raining, he’s using it to handle tight curves when getting off the highway and he’s filming everything with his smartphone the whole time. That’s not a recipe for survival.
And finally, we have a driver who got pulled over for speeding after his Tesla Autopilot set his speed at 75 mile per hour when the actual speed limit was 60 miles per hour.
Once again, we can’t emphasize enough that Tesla’s Autopilot feature isn’t supposed to be a substitute for driving. Anyone who thinks they can just flip it on and take their hands off the wheel is putting their lives and the lives of others in danger.
