Consumer Reports: Latest Autopilot “far less competent than a human”

Enlarge / A Tesla Model 3. (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

In recent weeks, Tesla has been pushing out a new version of Autopilot with automatic lane-change capabilities to Model 3s—including one owned by Consumer Reports. So the group dispatched several drivers to highways around the group’s car-testing center in Connecticut to test the feature. The results weren’t good.

The “latest version of Tesla’s automatic lane-changing feature is far less competent than a human driver,” Consumer Reports declares.

Tesla introduced its Navigate on Autopilot feature a few months ago, but at first, it would ask the driver to confirm lane changes. More recently Tesla has given drivers the option to have Autopilot initiate lane changes without confirmation. But CR’s reviewers argue that feature isn’t ready for prime time.