Roberto Baldwin / Engadget
Tesla’s current semi-autonomous technology helps reduce your driving involvement. Its next big move, however, could encourage you to take a more hands-on approach. Elon Musk has revealed that the new Roadster will include an “Augmented Mode” that promises to “massively enhance” your driving ability — he likened it to Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit. Just how it would work is unsurprisingly a mystery (the car isn’t even slated to arrive until 2020), but it’s implied that this will give you a helping hand when you’re driving near the car’s performance limits.
The concept of a car augmenting your driving ability is far from new. Some sports cars are well-known for their ability to bail you out when you push too hard, such as Nissan’s GT-R. The difference is that those cars typically rely on all-wheel drive and other straightforward driving assists to prevent you drifting off the road — Tesla has the luxury of cameras, sensors and raw computing power to come to your aid. That additional level of support could be vital in the Roadster, whose baseline 1.9-second 0-to-60MPH time and instant torque could be intimidating even if you’re a supercar veteran.
Definitely. Will also have Augmented Mode that will massively enhance human driving ability. Like a flying metal suit, but in car form …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 8, 2018