An interesting piece in this month's
Mercedes Enthusiast concerning the latest E-Class's near autonomous systems:
I'll come right out with it - I don't like it. Impressive as it may be, the technology still feels like a halfway house, and ultimately, in my view, creates more problems than it actually solves. I'm not convinced it's in any way relaxing, as I spent my entire drive scanning the road ahead looking to see that the car was spotting everything I was. There was a moment when it inexplicably decided to drop down to 50mph in the middle lane, and accelerated up to speed alarmingly when exiting on a slip road.
The steering feels weird too, the wheel writhing about in your hands, and not always picking the best line between the lanes. A work in progress then, and for now I'll stick to using my feet, hands, eyes and ears; the best controls and sensors in the E-Class, however clever the electronic ones appear to be. If you think that's a damning of the E-Class, it's not - it's true of all such semi autonomous systems (and Mercedes' is among the very best).
Volvo have had issues too - one of their threat detecting braking systems suddenly slammed on the brakes when the idiot robot was fooled by a bird taking off from the road ahead. A Tesla fatal accident occurred after, it was reported, the 'autopilot' couldn't tell the difference between a white truck and a bright sky....
As for unmanned passenger commercial air transport, I cannot imagine
any passengers trusting it. However, a ground-triggered 'divert to nearest aerodrome' override in the event of crew incapacitation or terrorist action might be worth researching.