CHJ Automotive's Li Xiang praises AutoPilot. Is Tesla's autonomous driving really reliable?

Recently, Li Xiang said: "The new version of AutoPilot is so easy to use. I feel that if it continues like this, Waymo's path will not be able to beat Tesla's path, and the cost will be dozens of times higher."

As an old Tesla user, Li Xiang has been doing free Tesla reviews. Previously, Li Xiang shared his experience of using the Tesla Model X 90D on Weibo, saying that Tesla "has a lot of problems, but I am willing to drive it every day."

In this post, Li Xiang gave a fair evaluation of Tesla's advantages and disadvantages. The convenience that smart cars bring to people is also obvious, and Tesla has always been regarded as a benchmark in new energy vehicles and smart cockpits.

But when it comes to autonomous driving, Tesla has been criticized.

Li Xiang also specifically criticized Tesla's autopilot function in a previous post, saying: "The over-promised Autopilot 2.0 will be the next pitfall that Tesla has solved after the Model 3 goes into mass production."

However, Li Xiang's evaluation of the new version of AutoPilot can be said to be fully positive. However, Li Xiang did not specifically say what is good about AutoPilot.

Li Xiang praised the Autopilot 9.0 version, which was officially launched in North America by Tesla at the end of October. However, Autopilot 9.0 does not seem to have been pushed in China yet, so Li Xiang must have experienced it through other channels.

Tesla's Accidents

According to foreign media reports, on October 31, a Model S of an American car owner crashed into another car in Autopilot automatic assisted driving mode, and the owner was injured.

When the accident happened, the owner turned on the Autopilot automatic assisted driving mode and drove at a speed of 80 miles per hour, but unexpectedly hit a damaged Ford Fiesta on the side of the road.

The owner has taken Tesla to court, accusing the company of violating Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Relevant reports show that Tesla cars have caused a series of fatalities and injuries since 2018. Most of the accidents are related to the owners' over-reliance on the autopilot function. Many owners do not keep their hands on the steering wheel when driving Tesla cars.

Mike Lenne, chief scientist at SeeingMachines, released the results of a survey on Autopilot at the International Autonomous Vehicle Summit. The reaction time of drivers who were fully involved in driving was between 0.5 seconds and 1.5 seconds, while the reaction time of drivers using Autopilot was 3.5 seconds.

The frequent accidents are closely related to Tesla’s promotion of “full self-driving”.

Tesla has also recognized this problem. At the end of October this year, the "Full Self-Driving" option was removed from all vehicle reservation interfaces on Tesla's official website, leaving only the "Enhanced Autopilot" option.

As Tesla's production capacity gradually breaks through, the stock of Tesla cars will increase rapidly.

If consumers do not have sufficient knowledge about the self-driving function of Tesla cars, or if Tesla fails to provide consumers with appropriate and sufficient education, the number of accidents may further increase as the inventory of Tesla cars gradually expands, and Tesla will also be subject to many lawsuits.

Some traditional car companies can also achieve assisted driving functions similar to Tesla, but they do not promote them as fully autonomous driving like Tesla.

In 2015, Musk claimed that Tesla would achieve fully autonomous driving by 2017. Of course, this goal has been unattainable. However, Musk has set a new goal. In an interview with Recode not long ago, Musk said that he is very confident that Tesla electric cars will achieve fully autonomous driving in 2019.

However, the general view in the industry is that fully autonomous driving may not be achieved within a decade. Fully autonomous driving means that the vehicle can drive autonomously in all weather conditions without any intervention from the occupants.

I have to say that Musk's bragging is really exaggerated.

What is Auto Pilot?

Recently, Consumer Reports ranked semi-autonomous driving systems for the first time. Cadillac's Super Cruise system ranked first, followed by Tesla's Autopilot system.

However, Consumer Reports also pointed out that Tesla has problems with exit ramps and navigation of interchanges. Jake Fisher, head of automotive testing at Consumer Reports, commented on Tesla Auto Pilot: It can perform tasks such as entering and exiting highways, but it is not perfect and is not smart enough.

Previous reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and a third-party market research company pointed out that among companies developing autonomous driving technology around the world, the leaders are Waymo, General Motors, Nissan and other companies, while Tesla, Apple, Uber and other companies are lagging behind their competitors.

A report by consulting firm Navigant shows that Waymo's ranking rose from 7th last year to 2nd this year, while Tesla's ranking fell to the bottom.

Google began conducting autonomous driving experiments in 2009. On October 30 this year, Waymo became the first company in California to conduct fully autonomous driving tests. By the end of this year, Waymo will launch commercial autonomous taxis without safety officers.

The first-mover advantage has made Waymo the company with the longest mileage in autonomous driving. This year, Waymo announced that it would purchase up to 62,000 additional Pacifica hybrid vans from Chrysler to expand Waymo's driverless fleet.

Traditional auto giants are also developing autonomous driving. However, most of them adopt a cooperative model. It is precisely because the development of autonomous driving is very expensive that traditional auto companies need to work together to keep warm.

Tesla's current market value is almost the same as GM and Ford. However, Tesla has been in a state of loss for a long time, while most traditional auto giants have good financial conditions.

Tesla has adopted a strategy of developing autonomous driving independently, but it is difficult for Tesla to take care of many aspects with its scattered energy. Tesla has also been reported to have developed its own autonomous driving chip. It is naturally a good thing for car companies to master the core chips for autonomous driving, but this means that Tesla's energy is more dispersed.

Tesla is much smaller than Google in terms of size. Google not only has more money than Tesla, but also does not manufacture hardware, but specializes in developing autonomous driving technology. It is obvious who has the advantage.

Behind the Likes

Li Xiang is the president of the new car-making company CHJ Automotive, which recently launched the smart car brand Ideal Intelligent Manufacturing. Although Tesla's factory in China has not yet been built, it is still a friendly competitor of CHJ Automotive. Li Xiang is indeed very humble and broad-minded to praise Tesla in this way.

However, giving a thumbs up to Tesla is also a waste of money for new car manufacturers.

At present, new car-making forces are under great doubt in China. They are facing problems such as insufficient manufacturing capacity, mass production and delivery, tight funds, and excessively fast burning of money. Moreover, even some of the vehicles that have been delivered have quality problems.

The current situation of new car-making forces is very similar to that of Tesla in its early days, facing numerous difficulties and not being optimistic.

New car manufacturers have always taken Tesla as their role model. If Tesla encounters any problems, it will undoubtedly weaken the market's confidence in new car manufacturers. On the contrary, the more powerful Tesla is, the more proud these students will be.

If "Waymo's path cannot beat Tesla's path", and if Tesla can achieve a great victory in autonomous driving, new car manufacturers will have more hope in autonomous driving.

At present, the new car-making forces seem to have the ambition to take on all aspects of new energy vehicles, autonomous driving, smart cockpits, operating systems, etc. The subtext of the new car-making forces advocating Tesla is nothing more than that what Tesla can do now, we can do in the future.

But in fact, simply manufacturing new energy vehicles costs tens of billions of RMB. The current new car-making forces have only raised tens of billions of RMB in total. New car-making forces really don’t have much money to engage in luxurious autonomous driving R&D and testing. At best, they can only do some integration and assembly work.

Waymo's path costs dozens of times more than Tesla's path. On the one hand, Google is really rich and Tesla is really short of money; on the other hand, autonomous driving development is really expensive.

It is a good thing for new car manufacturers to learn from Tesla with an open mind, but they should not learn from Tesla's unrealistic and over-promising. After all, safety is the top priority of autonomous driving. If safety is not guaranteed, no matter how cool the function is, it will lack a foundation.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.