How Accurate is the Tesla Auto Pilot? Curve of Death Test Run!

Today, we live in an age where just about everything that you see is tested and tested again by consumers before being put up online to share with the world. Should any pitfalls exist in a product, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone will find them and upload their findings to YouTube. Therefore, when Tesla released their autopilot system, they had to make sure that all of the bugs were worked out to the best of their ability before they would put this feature in the hands of consumers, not only because of the threat of it popping up online somewhere as not working but also, because of the more obvious fact that it is responsible for the lives of people within the vehicle.

This time, as a result of that thinking, we check out the scene as someone heads out with a Tesla that’s equipped with their autopilot feature and is putting the feature to the test around a curve that they call the “Curve of Death.” Essentially, what it looks like here is an off-ramp to transfer traffic from one highway to another, and in the middle of this transfer, the traffic will meet a curve that you need to slow down to 35 mph to be able to handle and cut the wheel pretty hard for a pretty sharp roundabout. You can see where this might pose an issue for an autopilot system.

If you follow down below, you’ll be able to see exactly how Tesla’s autonomous system handles such a curve, making sure to slow down as it goes at the traffic feature, trying to grapple with this unique turn that might not come up all that often for someone with a self-driving car. However, it doesn’t come without a scare as the car ends up skating toward the edge of the road, nearly finding itself off of the paved surface before continuing on and barely holding on to its job. I would venture to think that situations like this would be why Tesla doesn’t want you to fall asleep while the car is driving itself. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad on an open highway in the middle of nowhere but here, clearly, a little bit of user interaction may help out.