A Tesla Model 3 owner has posted a pair of videos online which he claims show the vehicle’s Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system avoiding a potential collision.
The footage was captured by the rear-facing camera near the driver’s side door, while the front-facing camera also caught the near-miss.
As the electric sedan travels down the highway, a black Chevrolet pickup truck moves past it in the carpool lane. Moments later, the rear-facing camera shows the Model 3 swerving around the Chevrolet pickup which is now facing in the opposite direction to the flow of traffic. A look at the front-facing camera reveals that the driver of the pickup was caught-out by slowing traffic and, while attempting to emergency brake, the pickup’s rear slid out and nearly performed an 180-degree spin.
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What’s impressive is just how quickly Autopilot was to react, if it was indeed activated. The moment the pickup starts to spin around into the lane occupied by the Tesla, the car steers around the pickup before returning to the center of the lane.
We have no doubt that an attentive driver would have been able to avoid this accident as well, but it’s nice to know that the semi-autonomous system handled this one quite nicely by itself
This video, like many others involving Autopilot, does capture some pretty eye-opening scenes and, if anything, does show that Tesla’s driving assistance system might not be perfect just yet, but is continuously improving.