> The difference between having to steer the car and not having to steer the car is extreme

Assuming you keep your hands on the wheel as required what exactly is the difference? I only found it to be a distraction as it takes me considerably longer to reengage (in less than expected situations) as the human driver after a period where I just let go a little.

That’s your experience as a Tesla driver?

I don’t have any “reengagement lag” as you might say. When I want to start steering the car again I just start steering. There is a slight resistance felt in the wheel if you turn past the autopilot without flipping the right stick up to explicitly disengage AP first.

There is a massive difference in the driving experience. How long did you try it for?

Active Lane assist features also steer themselves? At least for all VW brands they do (VW, Audi, Seat etc). Pretty sure the Mercedes active lane keeping does the same. They just don't sell it as an autopilot.

And my wife’s Acura will completely steer itself (with a much shorter list of features), but requires your hands on the wheel. It works without your hands, but it gets testy if you don’t move the wheel slightly every 15 seconds.

It’s significantly nicer to drive long stretches with this system, but I can’t imagine doing it without your hands on the wheel. When the sensors fail (weather or poor lane markings), you need to be able to take over immediately. Granting too much autonomy to the system is just too risky (and the point of the article).

Your wife's Acura does not steer itself the same way a Tesla steers itself. Your wife's Acura will try to keep the car from exiting a lane.

I had the same experience with Subaru's EyeSight system. I drive very rarely (you can count the number of times I drive in a year on one hand) so after a day of driving I'm usually completely beat. But after a day of highway driving with the EyeSight lane keeping/adaptive cruise control I was remarkably less fatigued.

Are you taking about LKAS? [1]

Not trying to be rude, but that is nothing at all like driving with AutoPilot.

[1] - https://youtu.be/iKWBdySgssE

You’re not being rude. It is the lane keep assist, and it is nothing like Tesla’s autopilot. But that was the point I was trying to make. It’s a very good, but limited, drivers aid. But because it’s likited, it won’t make (or rather let) you get complacent. This was the gist of the original article — the Tesla autopilot system is very risky when the system needs to hand over to the driver. The driver is likely to trust the system too much and therefore let down their guard and lose key context that is needed when the autopilot sees something that it can’t cope with. In those situations, a more limited system is likely safer because the driver is forced to be more engaged throughout the trip.