37-year-old Joshua Neally claims that his life was saved by his Tesla Model X.
During the beginning of a very busy commute home from Springfield, Missouri to Branson, Missouri, approximately 44 miles (70km) apart, Neally was suddenly overwhelmed with excruciating pain in his chest. With home nearly an hour drive away, it was evident that Neally’s only option would be to call an ambulance.
Or was it?
Instead, Neally decided on allowing his car to drive him to the nearest hospital using it’s autopilot feature; a quirk distinct to Tesla vehicles which enables the car to navigate itself. This includes changing lanes, braking, increasing and decreasing speed, et cetera.
The electric automobile drove about 20 miles, hands-free, to the nearest hospital. Neally states that he released the car from autonomous mode when he approached the hospital, and manually parked the vehicle.
He then proceeded to the emergency department where he discovered that one of his pulmonary arteries in his lungs was blocked, a pulmonary embolism, which can often be fatal.
According to doctors, Neally is extremely fortunate to be alive. But, if anything, the 37-year-old is very lucky to have been driving a Tesla. If the car was not semi-autonomous enabled, Neally could have been the victim of a fatal crash if he was to lose control of the car. Pulling over and ringing an ambulance could have taken extra time that Neally could not afford to lose.
However, these peculiar cars have been facing a lot of scrutiny in the media recently as a Florida man’s May death can be attributed to the failure of his Tesla’s autonomous driving detection feature.
So, is Tesla’s semi-autonomous feature really a secure, safe, good thing? Only time will tell.
Photo courtesy of Facebook.