Though we still may be a couple of years away from the flying cars predicted by The Jetsons and so many sci-fi movies, automobile technology is advancing at a mind-blowing rate. In just the past few months, we’ve heard about new sensors designed to protect the ears of Mercedes drivers in the event of a crash and, of course, the arrival of self-driving vehicles around the world. At the forefront of this technological revolution is Tesla, the Silicon Valley-based automaker that counts Elon Musk among its co-founders.
Earlier this week, footage from a dashboard camera of a Tesla Model X showing Tesla Autopilot, a safety-focused piece of self-driving hardware, was released that appears to show the system alerting the driver to a car accident two cars ahead just seconds before it happens, and automatically slowing down—allowing the driver to narrowly avoid a collision.
Though Tesla has not confirmed the footage, Musk did retweet a post about the story from Elektrek Co. The bigger story, of course, is how bringing this kind of technology to the masses could improve road safety and reduce accidents. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see who’s the better driver: technology or humans.
[h/t: Elektrek]
December 30, 2016 – 12:00pm