How Tesla's AutoPilot Works - Is It Worth $5,000?

hello everyone and welcome in this video we are talking about how Tesla's autopilot works were in my Tesla Model 3 we're also gonna be talking about whether or not it is worth the $5,000 charge that Tesla charges for autopilot now first of all a huge thank you to audible for sponsoring in this video I will get more into that at the end of the video but no there are relevant links in the video description so let's talk about how this autopilot system works now all of the hardware is included on every test list so regardless of whether or not you actually buy the software to be able to use autopilot all the hardware is already installed on the court so there are eight cameras twelve ultrasonic sensors and a forward-facing radar all of which are used to kind of create a vision of what's going on around the core so it knows how to drive in the environment that it's in so there are three cameras facing forward there's a wide field of view a medium field of view and a narrow field of view and that kind of differentiates with different speeds so at low speeds that wider view is more useful you can look at traffic lights things coming out from the sides things like that that medium range for you know those middle speeds as you get up to higher speeds like we are now driving on the highway it's of course going to want to look much further ahead and so that's what that narrow view forward-facing camera is for on the fenders of the car you've got two cameras looking backwards so giving you side views of you know what's in your blind spot if you're to merge over and then you also have two cameras on the b-pillars looking forward so it's looking to those sides so for example if you know you're coming up and there's a merge lane on your right those cameras will see the cars in that merge lane coming over onto the highway with you so you've got those looking forward into the side you've got the two looking backward and then you have finally the eighth camera is that rear facing camera and so that's looking directly behind you it's working not only for you parking for you to use but also incorporated within the auto pilot system so eight cameras total and there is some redundancy there you've got some overlap going on to see everything that's going on around you next we have the forward-facing radar and so this is pretty cool because it can see when you can't see quite as well so if there's heavy rain snow fog dirt dust things like that in the air then this radar can see through that to see the car ahead it can also bounce that radar underneath the core that's in front of you and see what's in front of it so you may not be able to see that there are you know two cars ahead of you but the radar itself could detect whether or not there's actually a car in front of you and if that car were to slam on the brakes then it would be able to detect it before it saw the person in front of you slowing down on the brakes assuming it sees that car ahead so that's a cool thing about using that forward-facing radar and then finally there are the twelve ultrasonic sensors and so I think of these is kind of a defensive thing so you know they're looking at a shorter range but they're making sure you know no one is merging into your lane coming into you for parking they're helpful to see you know how close am I to objects around me so if you're using the summon feature that autopilot will eventually enable that enables you to you know bring the car to you and have it park itself then you know that feature it's gonna use those ultrasonic sensors to make sure it can go through tight spaces and fit and perking spots so now let's just go through a demonstration of how the system actually operates and so I think of it as there are three levels to it so the first level all you do is simply put that steering column stock down once and it enables adaptive cruise control it's just like you know adaptive cruise control and other model so you can use this wheel right here and if you spin that forward a slow amount you can go up one at a time if you can do a big scroll on it it'll go up five miles per hour so that's just basic adaptive cruise control you are still completely responsible for the steering it handles the accelerator pedal and the brake pedal so you know if you're in stop-and-go traffic it's gonna accelerate come to a full stop accelerate come to a full stop and adjust its speed based on the traffic around you so if the car in front of you is doing sixty and you've got it set to seventy miles per hour you're only going to be doing 60 miles per hour as they get up to speed or if they got off the highway then the car will go back up to 70 miles per hour now the second level of this you'll see there's a little steering wheel right here and that indicator means I can turn on the active steering assist so if I push this stuck down twice now the core will actually do the steering for me now it says keep your hands on the wheel and it will yell you if you take your hands off the wheel but it is perfectly capable of steering the car all by itself you can see that it sees all the different lanes here it sees that there's multiple lanes and it keeps me within this Lane you can also see that it recognizes where other cores are around me so it's going to steer keep me centered in this lane I don't actually have to touch the wheel from a cannon handle at standpoint I have to touch the wheel from a legal standpoint to make sure you know that I'm actually paying attention doing my due diligence and making sure that I don't crash into someone else so it'll come up with that little warning there apply light force to the steering wheel if it sees that you're not doing it now I asked Tesla about this how long do I have to take my hands off the wheel before it will start yelling at me and what they said is the system actually learns how you drive so if you take your hands off for a very long period of time it's going to start to intervene more early next time based on your behavior so if you're always keeping your hands on it and you're doing great you know and then you take your hands off it'll give you a little bit longer assuming you're not doing that normally to give you that warning and say hey put your hands back on the wheel so it does the steering for you you just kind of put a little bit of light pressure on the wheel and you know then you just kind of relax do your thing pay attention make sure nothing crazy happens but as you can see here you know that truck just kind of cut in front of me not too far away from me when it did it the system recognizes hey that trucks going faster than you the Corps doesn't actually need to slow down it can recognize that speed difference and realize I don't have to actually have to slow down even though I'm very close to that vehicle now the other cool feature of this level too as I'm calling it where you push the steering column down twice is the fact that it can change lanes for you and so if you use the in cater stuck here the turn signal and say I want to go over to the right so I'm going to turn on that right turn signal my hands are not on the steering wheel and once it sees that it's available it's going to put the car over into this Lane here and then it will turn off my steering wheel and there we go so I just changed lanes there without even touching the wheel or the pedals at all it turned off the indicator light for me that I was turning into this Lane I think that's pretty neat that can actually change turn or change lanes for you here we'll do that one more time hands are off the wheel and applying a light amount of braking force because it's saw that vehicle right there was close and then gets over gets in this Lane turns off the turn signal and maintains the speed we are at very cool now the third level of this autopilot is navigation based autopilot and so what this does is if from a start you say I'm going here and you plug it into the navigation it will use that autopilot to help you out with your navigation so if it sees that for example you're going to take a few exits on the highway it will change lanes to get you ready for that exit on the highway it will also it can actually help you merge it can help you get on the off ramp or the on ramp so there are some features that it builds in if you say hey this is where I'm going to end up then it will take that into consideration make sure you're in the right land to do so and kind of take out some of the stress of getting around on the highway learning you know where do I need to be what do I need to do in order to make this roadtrip happen now finally the question is it worth it so if you were to buy this with the cornu it costs $5,000 if you were to install it after the fact after you buy it it's now listed at $7,000 now I didn't actually buy it I'm just running a free trial so with the software update it gave me a 30-day free trial to test it out which I could buy it if I want to where I don't - regardless all of the hardware is there so at any point in time you can upgrade to it now here's how I feel about it is for as the price of it isn't worth it from a development standpoint is Tesla charging a fair price for what they're developing in the background behind the scenes that I think so I think they are you know providing they're they're putting so much into this autonomous driving I mean that's the angle the end goal is that the core totally drives itself it's not just kind of this fancy cruise control it's instead the core literally drives itself from point A to point B you don't have to do anything and so they're trying to develop that behind the scenes and it has to be very expensive to do there's all kinds incredible numbers of variables that you have to take into consideration you know just reading street signs the safety aspects of it the legal aspects of it so many different variables that you have to consider when doing this you know self-driving load and so that's the part where I think you know is Tesla charging a fair price sure is it worth it to me personally and that's where the answer's no and that's why I didn't buy it personally I think you know this is fancy cruise control it's basically a nicer version of adaptive cruise control now if you don't up for it you only have regular cruise control you don't have adaptive cruise control you literally just have the speed based cruise control so you set it at 70 miles per hour and that's what it does so it doesn't react to cars around you that kind of thing it won't steer for you it won't change lanes for you so if you do want any of those features you do have to opt in for the total you know enhanced autopilot suite now there was a point where you could pay an additional fee ranging from about three thousand to five thousand dollars for full self-driving capability so that was on top of the enhanced autopilot and Tesla is no longer listing that as an option when you buy the core but essentially what that means is if there are Hardware changes that need to be made to the vehicle in the future and you do purchase that enhanced autopilot full self-driving then they will install those upgraded Hardware items for free you're not gonna have to pay to get those things installed and that maybe you know computer software or other things so you know regulations are really going to determine what's allowed and what we can do with self-driving cars and so that's another part of why you know to me I'm not all that interested in paying for these features at this time because we don't know what the regulations are gonna be we don't know what's going to happen in the future and because of that you know we don't know when it could be that you could actually use these features now what does that mean that I don't think it's worth it for anyone in any one scenario no I you know I think the enhanced autopilot can make sense if you're sitting in stop-and-go traffic everyday and you want the car to do that work for you that's a nice thing to kind of relieve some stress on your end still of course you have to pay attention but the core is gonna handle it it's gonna handle that stop and go traffic or if you're going on a long road trip and you know that can be kind of mentally draining constantly you know a hundred percent paying attention which you should do anyways but what I'm saying is you know it can kind of remove some of the burden from you from a mental stress level where you know you can just simply look ahead the chorus steering you're paying attention but you're not required to do all of the inputs it's taking some of that control away from you and putting it into the vehicle now let's say you do need to take over well if you turn the steering wheel abruptly there it will turn off the assisted steering and if you tap the brake it'll turn off both the assisted steering as well as the assistive accelerator and brake pedal now I also do think the end goal is very cool so while you know if I have to keep my hands on the steering wheel it's not that awesome of a feature to me in the future the future goal of having to be completely autonomous taking all of my responsibilities out of it if it means I can go on a road trip and not touch the steering wheel and I can do whatever I want here I do think that is very cool so for me personally I don't necessarily see the value in it in the way that I'm going to be using it that said you know if you are going to be sitting in stop-and-go traffic or using it for road trips I can see how it would be desirable to use now on the topic of road trips something which can help make these trips more enjoyable is audible audible is a service that provides access to audiobooks which can be great for long journeys on the highway if you visit w-w-w engineering explained or text engineering explained to 500 500 you'll have access to audible for a 30-day trial and you'll get your first audiobook for free one of my personal favorite authors is Michael Crichton well known for his books like Jurassic Park but why I really like the work he produced is that although it was fictional it was always really well researched if you haven't yet heard of prey it'd be a great audiobook to start with it's about how nanoparticles escaped in a Nevada laboratory and an experiment gone wrong and these particles are programmed as a predator audible also has exclusive audio titles called audible originals which can be found on audible and you'll get two originals included each month with your subscription so if you'd like to have audible a try you can do so at www.h enira ng explained or simply by texting engineering explained - 500 500 if you have any questions or comments of course feel free to leave them below thanks for watching

Channel: Engineering Explained

Views: 590,761

Keywords: tesla, tesla model 3, tesla model s, tesla model x, model 3, model s, model x, tesla motors, elon musk, tesla autopilot, autopilot, autonomous, autonomous cars, cruise control, adaptive cruise control, tesla pickup, tesla semi

Id: mBDfzQFhh1U

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019