Road Trip with a Tesla – Day 2: Utah Colorado Line

7:25 PM. Not sure we will make the Colorado Kansas line today but we will give it a fighting chance.  The Tesla’s lane keeping automation utilizes the road lines to center the car.  But the center of the lane does not always look like the center to the driver, or better said, the driver probably does not know where the true center of the lane is.  That is a good example of learning to trust the technology.

We did notice that when the painted lines on a roadway disappear, Autopilot struggles.  But what is neat is when it’s in Autopilot, the dash displays an icon right behind dash that reflects where the car is positioned in the lane which is very helpful at night and it displays the curvature of the road.

We just drove through a construction zone where two lanes narrowed to one with all the construction signage. The technology recognized the construction zone and the lane change.  Bravo!

 

Mike Nelson is embarking on a cross-country road trip from Orange County, California to New York City in a Tesla 90D Model S.  The Model S is equipped with autopilot and electric all-wheel drive.  Mike will share his experiences on the road with autonomous technology with Up to Speed readers in a series of posts.