Gadgetory


All Cool Mind-blowing Gadgets You Love in One Place

Can a Disabled Person Drive a Tesla?

2019-01-07
first I'll Drive 2018 so if you remember back when I made the off-road wheelchair and surprise cambrie with it there was a lot of questions in that video on how she can drive a car cambrie can you drive a car yeah I just use hand controls would you like to show everyone how you use these hand controls in a Tesla yeah let's get started so a lot of people think that Tesla autopilot is a way to get from point A to point B but that's not quite the case yet it still requires you know a driver and everything that cambrie needs to drive this car is in this back there called hand controls and I'm going to show you how they work so this is cane breeze first time actually driving the Tesla and this particular style of hand controls every hand control is a bit different this is more of a temporary solution once in my car are permanently bolted in and you operate a little bit differently than these ones as well but they have the same basic principle so right now these temporary hand controls are set up around there's a strap around the steering wheel this one goes down to the gas pedal and this one goes down to the brake pedal so as she grabs this lever right here pushes in for the brake and then she pulls back for the gas pedal and that's how she can drive are you ready all right I really nervous okay this is the first car I'll Drive of 2019 it's a good car to start with all right as your seatbelts on safety first explain to us how this setup is different than the setup in your Subaru and my setup if I push forward it's the brake and down as gas but if I go down nothing's gonna happen so it's just there's gonna be a learning curve are you ready yeah momentous okay I'll explain how this works all right so in order to work this whole thing make sure the brakes on like it is right now pressed in remember pulling back towards you as the gas pedal if you want to put it into park it's this button right here if you want to go into Drive you click it down hard all the way and that gave us the D right there which means we are in Drive and so if you release on the brake like you just let go of the hand controls for a second yeah nothing's gonna happen and the reason nothing happened is because here on the display panel we don't have creep enabled so the car is never gonna roll forward by itself now remember the hand controls are pretty sensitive so if you pull back slowly then we'll start inching forward and there's a chance I might not have to use the brakes as much as I would my Subaru exactly because the regenerative braking but you'll you'll get a feel for that as we go there you go how does the regenerative braking fill it's nice I feel like I'm like I'm not applying brakes but it just feels like it's naturally so like I would it was a break you got the hang of this so regenerative braking is actually pretty awesome hey you never have to use your brake pads so you hardly ever have to change out components on the Tesla because it's a super simple design you have your internal motors and you have your batteries there's no oil changes nothing like that the nice thing about it is that a it's slowing down for you but B it's also charging the batteries in the Tesla so you're actually gaining mileage as you're going down hills or you're coming to a stop it's using that energy and putting it right back into the batteries again which is pretty cool you ready for the acceleration I can just gun it yeah you're right cameras are going that is sweet okay Bree has the hand controls figured out pretty well we're gonna take it on the freeway and we're gonna try out something called autopilot which is kind of a game changer for the disabled community a lot of people who like I mentioned before I think autopilot is a way to get from point A to point B but that's seriously not quite the case yet Elon Musk the CEO of Tesla calls autopilot more of a hands-on system instead of a self-driving system we're currently on the freeway and there's pretty well-defined lines on either side and right here there's a little gray indicator saying that the car is ready for autopilot so we are gonna have cambrie just tap twice down on this joystick this notification is now blue and the car is driving itself are you feeling anxious she's watching me do this but she's never been the one in control this is a hands on self-driving system Cambridge still has to stay alert so about every 30 seconds or so the car will make sure that the driver is awake and alert by having them apply light force to the steering wheel but the nice thing is that cambrie doesn't have to use her hand controls when she's in this autopilot mode right now her hands are completely free there's a curve in the road and the car is handling everything for us it is going around this curve and keeping us a safe distance from other cars so you can see all the other cars in position around us so you can see that car in front of us just passed and you can see it on the screen right there and then right here it says a plight light force to the steering wheel and then it lets you go back into hands-free mode again nice guess we're still in the test though we're gonna try out autopilot again here on this road this one's a little bit more curvy so we'll see if cambree likes it alright the green icon is there double tap down alright the road is turning are you feeling the cars doing all the work for you yeah well I got nervous the first time so we have three lanes right now and because I know this road it's gonna end up in just two it's now oh I'm gonna do anything I just did the signal and it moved us over to the link yeah okay that's awesome we're still a little I was driving I just signaled and it found an opportune time to turn it's way easier than driving a normal car so what are your thoughts on autopilot it's a little nerve-wracking right now just because I'm not used to it but it's pretty incredible one of the reasons the model three has such a big screen in the center is so that they can actually watch movies while they're driving down the road autonomous driving is still you know five or ten years out there's so many like regulatory approvals they have to go through right now if you turn on autopilot we'll still blow through stop signs and stoplights so you still have to have a driver making sure the autopilot is not going to mess up but it's still you know pretty fun the cool thing about owning a Tesla is that it gets constant updates so right now we're the autonomous driving is you know pretty much just on the freeway or on roads that have well-defined lines it's gonna get improved over the next five or ten years and this car already has the hardware to get those software updates it has the cameras and the sensors all around the side so in fully autonomous driving is finally legal we won't have to go out and buy a new car this one just receives a software update and it's ready to go so one thing people might not think about is when they're parking obviously a handicap parking stalls usually have like a space next to him where the wheelchair can get in and out cambrie have you ever had any problems with parking before yeah when all the handicapped parking spots are taken I'll have to go to a normal spot I try and make as much room between the car and my car so that I can open the door wide enough to get out but I can't guarantee that that car is gonna stay where it is and when I come back that there's not gonna be another car close to me true because her door has to be all the way open to get from her wheelchair into the driver's seat now normally we wouldn't think twice about this situation with the Tesla right behind us and a car right next to us but with Cambridge she can't fit through that tiny little gap but Tesla's have something called summon which is pretty cool Elon has also said that you will be able to drive your car like a little remote control from your phone in the future as of right now though it's just forward and back when your phones within range and I'll show you how that works so all we have to do is just jump down here and to summon it gets the vehicle ready for us and then we can go forward and reverse right now so we're just gonna bring it forward car turns on no one is driving right now totally controlling it from my phone and it even steered a little bit to avoid me standing here which is pretty cool and there is nobody in the car so cambrie what do you think of the summon feature in the car opens up doors for more individuals with disabilities and I also think it kind of makes the car feel a little bit more like right so it's fun it's like a little puppy you think one interesting thing about Teslas is if you walk into the Tesla dealership and just buy one outright you don't get a whole lot of special perks but if you use someone's code usually there's a perk attached with it like currently right now you get six months of free super charging it's like getting six months of free gas for your gas powered car it's pretty cool the perks do change with time so if you are interested in buying a Tesla I will leave my code right here for you so you can get that six months of free super charging and down in the video description so not only our Tesla some of the quickest and most powerful cars on the market but they're also the closest cars to the fully self-driving that is the future and I'm excited to see where things go if you have any questions leave down in the comments I'm sure cambrie we'll be there to answer them for you and thanks ton for watching we'll see you around
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.