Tesla releases video of fully autonomous Model X electric car
Tesla announced on Wednesday that from now on all of its electric cars will be built with the components required to turn them into fully autonomous vehicles at a later date. Now chief executive, Elon Musk, has released a video showing what that really means.
The video shows a Tesla Model X driving out of a garage, picking up a human driver who is required to be in the driving seat for the car to legally self-drive in the US and then driving itself around some public roads, navigating junctions and highways before returning to a parking lot, letting out the human driver and then going off to park itself.
Its an impressive feat for a car that shows no visible signs of the typical paraphernalia required to pull off the stunt. Googles car, for instance, has a large spinning lidar on the top and various other visible signs of automation.
Musk said that the release of the video was the cause of Teslas delay announcing the inclusion of the eight cameras, 12 ultrasonars and radar being embedded in each new Tesla car.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/tesla-releases-video-of-fully-autonomous-model-x-electric-car
Pretty impressive video at the link -- even seems to recognize stoplights. Autonomous driving will be here sooner than most people think.