Autopilot is far from perfect. But then again, I am also not perfect. Who wins in tricky situations? Watch and see.

It rained here in Boston this evening. As it happened, earlier in the evening I got the latest 2019.8.5 update that several people on reddit said had improvements to the auto-wiper function of the car (amongst other things!). So I tried it. In the past, auto-wipers were useless for me. Now they are ok — still slower than I would like, but ok. But that’s not what struck me this evening.

I was driving in moderate rain on the Mass Pike towards Boston at dusk, then back out later at night, where I took the short video below.

In wet conditions at night, and after a long winter where road lines are scraped off by snow plows the markings on the road are nearly impossible to see. Reflections on the shiny road surface obscure lines, spray from other vehicles makes it worse, especially at night, and especially when there are lots of lights. It’s very hard to drive, and not just for me — other vehicles do their best to stay in the proper lane, but not always perfectly. Other than snow, it’s about as hard as driving gets.

Here’s a short clip of my drive in moderate rain this evening:

I sometimes think I was frivolous or just being my normal geeky self for buying the Tesla Autopilot upgrade. Sometimes using AP is a nice convenience. But in cases like this evening and night, when driving in extremely difficult situations I realize this system is more than just a nice-to-have — it’s a safety feature, first and foremost.

AP is far from perfect. It fails in a number of cases. It is worse than nothing in a few, as some have found in cases where AP drives into poorly marked lanes, or in construction, or just cases where roads split and merge. If you trust it too much, it can be very dangerous, I suppose. But I don’t trust it too much. Instead, I think of AP as an assistive function that supports me when situations get complicated, or things change quickly, or when I am distracted.

Tonight, I was simply unable to make out the lines on the road. Autopilot was absolutely brilliant. For all the whiz-bang and hyperbole around Tesla and AP, I simply felt (and was) safer. How much is that worth?