Volvo: Tesla’s Autopilot “An Unsupervised Wannabe”

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With the competition in the self-driving car world heating up, a Volvo engineer just fired shots at Tesla.

Tesla has released its Autopilot system for the Model S, and will add it to the Model 3 when it hits the road next year. Autopilot is billed as Level 2 automation, which means it’s quite a way off from from full-on autonomy, but can free up the driver from changing lanes, overtaking, maintaining speed, and the like. Some, however, like Ford CEO Mark Fields, go as far as to label it Level 3 technology.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said that Autopilot can reduce the risk of accidents by up to 50 percent.

Not everyone is on board, however, with some of the company’s rivals taking a more sceptical stance. Trent Victor, a Volvo engineer, recently told The Verge that Autopilot “is more of an unsupervised wannabe,” than proper automation. “It gives you the impression that it’s doing more than it is,” Victor said.

Volvo has made a stance against Level 3 autonomy, in which a driver, while free from driving, needs to be ready to take control of the vehicle at a moment’s notice. Volvo believes this is inherently unsafe, as it cannot be expected from not-driving drivers to be free to resume driving from other tasks.

Instead, Volvo is aiming to release its Drive Me autonomous car at a Level 4 of autonomy to public testing as early as next year. Drive Me, Volvo says, will not only handle the mundane task of actually getting places, but be prepared to handle any emergency that may arise with no human intervention.

“In our concept, if you don’t take over, if you have fallen asleep or are watching a film, then we will take responsibility still,” says Victor. “We won’t just turn [autonomous mode] off. We take responsibility and we’ll be stopping the vehicle if you don’t take over.”