Connect with us

Volvo Trash Talks Tesla

(Credit: Volvo )

Latest Car News

Volvo Trash Talks Tesla

Volvo Drive Me prototype

Volvo Drive Me prototype (Credit: Volvo )

Trent Victor, senior technical leader of crash avoidance for Volvo, told The Verge that Tesla’s AutoPilot, is “an unsupervised wannabe.” That’s some serious engineering shade being thrown down there.

It might sound like Volvo’s just jealous, but Victor didn’t stop there. He said Teslas are semi-autonomous cars that pretend to be fully-autonomous, which makes them dangerous wannabes.

Tesla says AutoPilot is a Level 2 autonomous system. That puts it in the same class as a setup that teams adaptive cruise control with automatic lane centering. You have the tech taking over two primary control functions, giving the driver a little break, that’s it.

Quite a few experts say AutoPilot is actually a Level 3 autonomous system. The driver turns over the control of all critical functions to the system, but it only works in certain traffic conditions, which is exactly how AutoPilot operates.

The catch with Level 3 is that the driver has to be ready to take control of the vehicle as needed, with “reasonable” warning time. There’s a problem in some situations, like if the human falls asleep or doesn’t notice any alerts because Game of Thrones is just too interesting.

This is Volvo’s point of contention. The Swedes think Level 3 is dangerous, which is why they’re skipping it and going straight to Level 4. Other automakers like Daimler have also criticized Tesla for releasing beta versions of safety systems to everyday drivers.

The big question is, does Tesla put everyone at risk just to look cool?

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in Latest Car News

SPONSORED

Newsletter

Get Our StoriesIn Your Inbox

Subscribe for our latest news, reviews, and lists.

Popular Stories

Recent Posts

SPONSORED
To Top