Dash Cam Footage Shows Tesla Predicting a Crash Before It Happens
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A new viral dash cam video is making the rounds — and it shows Tesla’s autopilot function accurately predicting a car accident before it happens.
The video was first uploaded to Twitter by Hans Noordsij of the Netherlands. In the clip, a group of cars is seen driving on the A2 motorway near Eindhoven, Netherlands. Suddenly, the Forward Collision Warning beeps and the Tesla goes into emergency braking mode, slowing the electric vehicle down to a halt. Moments later, two cars collide in front of the Tesla, causing an SUV to flip over, according to Quartz.
Original video, authorisation from the owner. Essential, no one could predict the accident but the radar did and acted by emergency braking. pic.twitter.com/70MySRiHGR
— Hans Noordsij (@HansNoordsij) December 27, 2016
Noordsij pointed out on Twitter that the autopilot function accurately predicted the crash before any human could — and the emergency braking successfully and safely brought the Tesla to a stop before Noordsij could apply the brakes himself, Mashable reported. Although the crash looks severe on video, no one was seriously injured, Noordsij said.
The upgraded radar processing and emergency braking seen in the video were included with Tesla’s version 8.0 software, which first started rolling out in September. The updated software utilizes radar that “bounces” underneath or around a vehicle, effectively allowing the Tesla to “see” two cars ahead. That’s a sharp contrast to the primarily camera-based system that Tesla previously used.
That camera system came under fire after several crashes involving the company’s autopilot feature. During one crash in May, in which Tesla owner Joshua Brown was killed, the autopilot’s sensor suite was unable to differentiate the side of an 18-wheeler truck from the brightly-lit sky behind it. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said it was “very likely” that the new safety features in version 8.0 could have prevented Brown’s death.
The new safety features were pushed out via an over-the-air software update to Tesla vehicles running the first-gen autopilot software. On Dec. 22, Musk tweeted that the new features will be added to the second generation of autopilot sometime this week.
