Posted September 13, 2018 07:16:33I’ve never been much of a car person, but I do love to drive.
I’ve always been into technology and I was fascinated with the concept of autonomous vehicles, and the idea of driving with a human.
I was intrigued enough to take my son, Max, and my daughter, Kaitlyn, to a few tech-related events in San Francisco.
We went to the annual CES in Las Vegas for the first time and were immediately impressed with the amazing displays at the show.
I thought we would have to make a big deal out of it.
I wanted to drive myself.
I wanted to be able to see what was happening on my phone and control the car as it passed me.
I figured we could go the “somewhere where you don’t have to be in the driver’s seat” route and just have my son sit in the back seat while I get into the front.
And, of course, I wanted the car to drive itself.
We made the decision that we were going to buy an all-electric car and that we would get it into the hands of my son and Kaityn as soon as possible.
We went to Tesla’s booth in Vegas to demo the Model S, the electric sedan that is expected to be the first Tesla to go on sale in 2020.
As we sat there, I asked my son about his experience of driving.
He was intrigued, and we talked for a bit about the new Autopilot system that Tesla is introducing to the Model 3.
My son, for example, can cruise a track in Autopitan and turn on the headlights and brake lights, but he can’t do all of that while in the car.
He wants to be driving in a way that is intuitive.
So, I said, “Okay, you can be in Auto mode while you are driving.”
My son is in the rear seat, and I can’t see the screen and I’m in the front seat.
He asked me, “Mom, how do I do that?”
And I said “Well, you’re driving, right?”
He told me that if I put the phone on the dash while he was in the seat, he would see that it was in Autosteer mode.
He would have control over the steering wheel, and there was no need for me to take over driving.
I didn’t have time to figure out what the hell that meant.
But I thought that was a really cool feature.
I liked that it enabled me to control the steering while my son was in control.
My daughter was just sitting in the passenger seat, so I was the only person in the vehicle, and she had to be completely silent.
And she had a headset on her face.
I said to my son “Hey, I need you to put that on, too.”
I said I was going to show you some stuff and I would be back later with my son.
I just got back to the car and I started driving.
The car was just so much fun.
There was nothing to slow down.
There were no limits.
I would never be in this position again, I told him.
I thought I would just be sitting there watching him drive the car, but then he said, No, you need to put it on.
I went, “What?”
He said, I want to take control of the steering and brake.
I had to say, “Yeah, I can do that, but you’re going to have to hold on to the steering, too.
I’m not gonna take it out, but there’s no way I can put my finger on it and not feel it.”
I thought, Oh my gosh, this is really cool.
I really thought I could drive myself in the next five years, and now, with Autopilots, I’m a human driver, not an autonomous car.
I realized I would have no idea how to steer the car if I wasn’t using the steering wheels.
So I started looking at other ways to control Autopiks.
The first was to get a steering wheel that would be the exact same as the one in the Model X. I found an old steering wheel for $80 on eBay.
And that was awesome.
It was like a big-ass wheel.
It had all the buttons and knobs and switches.
So it was like, OK, I have a steeringwheel.
I can get a feel for how to use it.
I could even use the phone and turn it on while I’m driving.
I also wanted a car that would have a “driver-assist assist” feature.
It is a feature that allows you to get behind the wheel without using your hands.
The problem with having a steering-wheel-mounted driver assist is that you have to pull back your hands from the steering axis.
That is, you have a lot of friction and pressure on the steering gear