Watch an Autonomous Tesla React to Pedestrians (W/Video)

Tesla showed off a fully autonomous Model X driving on public roads in a demonstration video last month. Now, Tesla has released a second video showing its autonomous technology reacting to more difficult situations.

Like in the first demo, a driver sits behind the wheel, but only for legal purposes. “He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself,” Tesla explains in the video. And this time around, the driver’s hands aren’t even poised under the steering wheel during the entire drive.

In the video below, the autonomous Tesla is tasked with stopping for pedestrians, handling tricky intersections, and avoiding parked cars on the side of the road. At the end of the demo, the driver hops out of the vehicle, demonstrating how the Tesla can find a spot and parallel park itself on the street.

Now that Tesla has upgraded its Autopilot system, its new vehicles will be capable of Level 5 automation. This level is the highest tier defined by the SAE, and is a big step up from Level 2 autonomy that was offered on the old Autopilot. Tesla claims the new hardware has an onboard computer that boasts more than 40 times the computing power of the previous unit. In the video, a split-screen setup allows you to see how the cameras inside the Tesla are reacting to different obstacles on the road.

Tesla is continuing its mission to log millions of miles of testing on Autopilot Hardware 2. Tesla is now selling cars equipped with the hardware, and will enable the fully autonomous features gradually over the air.

Source: Tesla via YouTube

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