Autopilot technology drives Teslas but comes with warnings

[...] instead of coming under heavy government scrutiny before being sold to the public, Tesla can mass-produce cars that automatically adjust speed with the flow of traffic, keep their lane and slam the brakes in an emergency.

In a nod to those concerns, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Tuesday that government regulators and the auto industry need to engage in a more rigorous review of self-driving technology before it enters the marketplace to assure consumers it is "stress-tested."

Since the Florida crash and subsequent federal investigation, Musk has said Tesla is working to improve Autopilot.

Traditionally, a company tricks out test cars with a new technology and recruits hundreds of research assistants and other people familiar with the system's limitations to test drive them to understand unanticipated ways they crash, said Jim Sayer, a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.

In a blog post Wednesday, Musk defended the company's decision to market partial self-driving technology now rather than waiting until Autopilot has greater road test experience that might reveal other problems not anticipated by engineers.

By enlisting its fiercely loyal owners as test drivers, Tesla says it has almost 90,000 cars or SUVs gathering Autopilot data, giving the company a tremendous competitive advantage because driving data lets Tesla improve the technology with software updates beamed directly to cars.