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Day 3 April 21, 2017 Autopilot and ALMOST THERE!

4/21/2017 
The husband drove through a couple of Virginia super charging stations. Not much details since the wife was sleeping. 

People have sent us questions on whether we recommend driving through the night and what is the autopilot like. Below are some of our quick thoughts on the questions. 

Would you recommend driving through the night?
Yes, especially when you have a little one and depends on how tired you are. She was comfortable in her car seat and slept through the entire night, so we covered a lot of distance with less stress on keeping her happy and entertained. We did not encounter traffic, so again we covered a lot of miles without wasted time. There were not a lot of cars on the road, so using autopilot was amazing! Not that autopilot does not do well with a lot of cars but it just makes it even more relaxing. We were not in a rush to get to a destination, so we kept it open on whether we need to stop or not. Our original plan was to stop at two places to visit friends but due to the lack of aligning our  arrival time to our friend's work schedule, we skipped the visits and therefore did not feel the need to stay at a  hotel. I say, if you have a military trained husband who can fully function on a couple of hours of sleep and a nap, then do it. 

What is it like to drive with autopilot?
  • First, we need to define Tesla's "autopilot" - it means the car identifies/defines two lanes and stays within those lanes. It can change lane when you signal left or right after it has calculated the  safety factor in the distance between the car in front and behind you. It does not auto-drive you to your destination such as taking exists or stopping at traffic lights.  
  • You do certainly feel much more comfortable and relax with it after using it for a while. You learn to trust it on a healthy balanced level with the mutual understanding that you are still the driver. Like cruise control, you can take over by pressing on the brake. The second way of taking control over the car is pulling slightly on the steering wheel to turn autopilot off. The car won't let you forget to keep your hands on the steering wheel. If your hands are not on the steering wheel after short period of time, the dashboard will blink to remind you to put your hands on the steering wheel. If the driver is not compliant after the first warning, the car starts to make noise to alarm you. If you do not follow the warnings, the car will eventually disengage the autopilot option, put on the emergency blinker lights, and slow down (we have not gotten to this point yet). 
  • The thing we love about autopilot is that it stays pretty in the middle of the lanes, keeping you a good distance from both sides. It has sensors all over the car so it is constantly adjusting itself. 
  • The wife's favorite option is that the car can be set to stay a certain number of cars distance away from the car in the front. This option is on when the car is on either cruise control or autopilot. For example, when the car is set on cruise control or autopilot and the driver can set the car distance to stay  6 cars way from the car in front of it. So when your Tesla car comes up on a car in front of it (or a car pulls in front of the Tesla car), your car will reduce speed and distance to keep 6 cars away from the front car. You can't possibility hit another car if you drive with cruise control or autopilot. This option is great for in city's traffic too.
  • How did the car do with autopilot? Great. We used it 95% of the time as the trip continued. It stays between two lanes unless you signal it to go to the left or right lane.  When the lane split for an exit, it can get a little confused but it does its best to redefine the two lanes that it needs to stay within. The new software update - car stays close to the left lane and tries to define the right lane. We are very impressed by the car's ability to mark the two lane lines at places that were worn out with paint almost wiped out. So far so good and so far so safe!

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