chemengin

I have to admit, I was fully on the LIDAR train (not completely off), but after watching Tesla's autonomy presentation, I find myself thinking about the Model 3 a lot more. I am as liberal as it comes when it relates to autonomous driving (I use traffic jam assist on the daily) and believe that a full Level 4/5 will come sooner than we think. No need to fear technology. Any thoughts on what, if any, Audi is doing in this regard? Aside from the A8's Level 3 alleged capabilities, I haven't heard much news in this area.

idealdreams

The Model 3 has been on my mind a lot lately, to the point where I am considering going to test drive one sooner than later, especially now since they've tweaked the trim levels, are much more readily available, have AWD at the ready, and AutoPilot is now included in the base price.

I am very interested in where autonomous driving is heading, as now Cadillac, Tesla, and Audi are playing in this realm. Cadillac's system is very impressive having driven a CT6 for a short while. Unfortunately, at $52,000, the Model 3 is still priced outside of my comfort level so it'll be a while before I make the jump, but it is very much on my radar.

I am very excited for the future of cars as I believe this is the next cornerstone auto feature that will begin trickling down into every car before long.

MDAudi

Consumer Reports is reporting below average reliability for Tesla Models 3, S and X. Given that, and the turmoil at Tesla lately, I just can't imagine going for one in the near future. I want Tesla to thrive, but Musk cannot get production to the levels necessary to do so. And he has to stop distracting himself with dumb stuff like the "Boring Company" nonsense.

For now, Audi's Traffic Jam Assist is enough for me. It isn't "autonomous driving", but I'm still very happy with it. I think I will wait for v2.0 or even v3.0 of autonomous driving technology. Early adopters always pay too much for too little...

munsabin

I hope level 4 comes sooner rather than later. But only because they're all gonna keep a couple of car lengths between them. My commute would be so much more fun :P

MDAudi

I am concerned about the transition period, when we have a mix of cars with autonomous driving (and even just ACC) mixed with the rest of the clowns out there. As it is, ACC makes the people behind me totally crazy. I am going **exactly** the same speed as the guy in front of me, but the fool behind is honking and flashing his lights because the (safe) gap is big enough that it looks like I am going slow.

What you will have is a lot of people in manual driving mode gaming all the autonomous vehicles, cutting them off all over the place because they can rely on the technology in the autonomous car to brake in enough time to avoid a collision. My guess is the frequency of rear end collisions will increase as you get more autonomous vehicles on the road until you reach some critical mass of them (40%? 60%? 80%?).

Dave W

I’ll pass on it.

chych

Install a rear dash cam to get the clowns behind you to shut up. Make sure it's visible through the windows (i.e. black camera over black seats is not visible). Probably don't even need to have a real one either, just something that looks like a camera.

iggawiggy

I don't think fully autonomous driving will ever work. There's too many variables besides other cars and the technology just isn't anywhere near where it needs to be for people to fully trust these systems, and I don't think it will ever get there. I personally think automakers investing a lot of money into it are going to lose big.

Think about all the potholes, animals, severe weather that will basically render the system useless or extremely dangerous. I personally don't trust it at all. I mean, how lazy have we become where turning a steering wheel and pressing on a gas pedal is too much work.

MDAudi

The one time I was rear ended, it was because the fool was looking at her cell phone. So it wouldn't have worked then...

JD15

I would somewhat discount the info presented at the Tesla Autonomy Day, as it was intended to pump the stock price (unsuccessful) for the capital raise that was announced this past week. I am interested in electric cars, but far less so about autonomous driving. I rarely use the assisted driving features on my S5 because the net effect of those features is a car that appears to be driven by a drunk 17-year-old, increasing the probability I will be rear ended. I also cannot tolerate the jerky, inefficient speed-up, speed-up, speed-up, and then jam on the brakes behavior of Traffic Jam Assist.