Self-driving cars have yet to become the reliable personal taxis they were proposed to be. In fact, autonomous driving technology such as Tesla self-driving has continuously proven to be riddled with issues.
For example, self-driving cars have almost shut down the city of San Francisco due to software issues. Furthermore, Tesla machines have been involved in so many autonomous crashes that the company is under investigation.
This has led many to look into how dangerous Tesla’s autopilot and full self-driving systems are. With the cars’ unfinished software swerving towards crowds and getting confused by The Moon, independent tests are publicly trialling the system.
In an experiment, tech outlet The Dawn Project tested Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta 10.69.2.2, the latest version available to them at the time. The outlet determined that the software would “repeatedly” strike down a baby in a stroller.
Across multiple tests, The Dawn Project determined that a the car would run over a stroller in a parking lot. Furthermore, the self-driving AI would still hit the stroller if a baby — tested using a mannequin — was visible in the stroller.
The test also moved out of supermarket parking lots and into public roads. Even still, the Tesla self-driving AI would still hit the stroller when it was in the middle of a road. No errors were shown in the car other than the lack of supercharging availability.
“Tesla Full Self-Driving represents a potentially lethal threat to child pedestrians,” the outlet wrote. “Our tests were conducted in real world driving scenarios on public roads, highlighting further the immediate and real danger posed to child pedestrians by Elon Musk’s dangerous and defective Full Self-Driving software.”
You can watch the test below:
Comments for the video test explained that the car’s recognition software is underwhelming for one reason: the lack of LiDAR. Earlier Tesla vehicles were equipped with LiDAR as well as cameras. However, they recently switched to just cameras for self-driving.
It’s well-known that LiDAR sensors will help to solve Tesla’s self-driving issues, as well as better software. Despite this, CEO Elon Musk’s affinity for cheap manufacturing means this tech will likely never return.