Self-driving car technology is a new technology considering the age of traditional car technology. Many companies are working on self-driving. But Tesla Motors company has apparent domination on the market. Recently Tesla Motors company was criticized as they called thousands of cars back to repair a malfunction of the self-driving feature. Tesla Motors' self-driving technology is superior to the others. This superiority is why Tesla Motors is dominant in the self-driving car market. Tesla Motors have been announcing new versions of the self-driving feature. First, it was just lane following, then it started to find the driver in park areas, and the final version consists of full self-driving.

Car drives itself to a location where the driver -or should we say the passenger on the driver seat- has pointed to on the map. With this feature, new bugs started to show up. Several videos reported that Teslas could not identify the right lane and detect some objects on the road. These issues may not sound that bad for an attempt at a fully autonomous car, but increasing speed can cause fatal crashes considering a car accident. New discussions emerged after some users realized those problems and shared videos of said problems. Can a self-driving car navigate itself without a LIDAR sensor? A LIDAR sensor creates a virtual 3D map of the environment and acts. But Tesla does not have a LIDAR sensor. It has four cameras for four sides of the car (front, back, left, and right). Google is executing the most significant work on the LIDAR sensor self-driving car project. Considering the design problems of the LIDAR sensor, many companies use camera technology for their self-driving software. Now, considering both technologies, which one is better? Both cars can drive autonomously. The design issue is a relative problem. Some may like the LIDAR sensor as it looks futuristic, and some may not like the sensor as it looks like a giant chef hat at the top of the car.

On the other hand, when we consider accessibility, there are only non-LIDAR cars in the market. This makes them more accessible, and it is easier to collect data from owners as people's driving behavior and environment vary. My personal choice is vehicles with cameras as they are available, becoming more affordable, and they look more like an average car. If you are not planning to sleep while driving, just not be exposed to the traffic stress and relax for half an hour, these cars are just for you. Considering the latest words of Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, self-driving vehicles may cause more chaos in the traffic and may look scary. No one can understand the behavior or intention of some drivers on the road. It is the same for those machines, but a little different. They may fail to understand some movements that you can understand. As you can eliminate mistakes that can be prevented by human intervention, these cars can also protect you from mistakes that you are not aware of. In general, self-driving vehicles need to be developed more. However, the use of these vehicles in today's technology will help develop technology and reduce fatal accidents.

Google’s Self Driving Car

Tesla Model X