Tesla cars have been in the news recently concerning the safety of their autopilot feature, which many have been using (against Tesla’s instructions) as a sort of “virtual butler,” a driver that will take you wherever you want to go without needing your attention or intervention. In light of the bad press, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted out a picture of an email sent by a Model S owner claiming that the vehicle’s Automatic Energy Braking (AEB) had saved a person’s life.
“I was on New York Ave and it was night time,” the email said. “There was a lot of glare…a pedestrian stepped out in front of our Model S in the dark with dark clothes and in the middle of the road.” The email continued saying that before the driver could step on the brakes, the car had stopped itself just inches from hitting the pedestrian, and If you’re in doubt, Tesla has reported that the drive logs from the vehicle corroborated these claims.
But if this sort of thing is as common as Tesla claims, then why haven’t they reported more incidents like this one? According to Musk, it’s just because they don’t want to bother their customers. “There are a lot of interventions that occur and that we are aware of,” he said. “We don’t want to put any pressure, like “no pressure, only if you want to share it.”
Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk, Flickr Creative Commons
