From PC Mag: As far as Tesla is concerned, Autopilot is the future and will eventually lead to self-driving cars. But right now Autopilot can be turned off, and Tesla decided to make its electric vehicles even safer when it is.
This week, Tesla announced that all vehicles manufactured after Oct. 2016 would be receiving two new safety features that remain active even when Autopilot isn't in use. They are Lane Departure Avoidance and Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance.
The data Tesla collects on how its vehicles are driven reveals that inadvertently departing a lane is the most common cause of accidents when Autopilot isn't being used. So in a bid to reduce the chance of accidents occurring, it was an obvious move to keep lane departure safety features enabled at all times.
The Lane Departure Avoidance features allow drivers to "elect to have corrective steering applied in order to keep them in their intended lane." It checks to see if the turn signal is on when a lane departure is detected and whether the driver's hands are on the wheel. If they aren't, and continue to be absent from the wheel for an extended period, the vehicle will slowly reduce its speed down to 15mph below the speed limit and turn the hazard lights on.
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