In 1955, Chrysler launched a new division focused on the luxurious Imperial luxury sedan, which also helped introduce designer Virgil Exner’s new forward look styling. The idea behind the Imperial division was to give Chrysler a more competitive entry at the premium end of the market, where it could compete with companies like Cadillac and Lincoln. So it was only natural that the “Chief of Forward Look” – as advertising writers described it – focused on the latest high-tech innovations, and in 1958, that meant one of the first modern cruise-control systems: Autopilot.
However, no one at Chrysler invented this system. Instead, it was an engineer named Ralph Teeter who first applied for a patent on the technology in 1948. Teeter was one of the first blind graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, and is generally acknowledged as the nation’s first blind engineer. His mechanical inclinations began at an early age, when he designed and built his own 3-horsepower motor car when he was only 12 years old. Teeter also has a part in the history of automatic transmissions with a patent for a fluid-operated gearshift in 1924, one of more than 40 patents he earned before passing away in 1982.
Teeter’s first technology involved a physical mechanism that would increase gas-pedal resistance when the vehicle reached a preferred speed. By 1958, the so-called speedostat had been upgraded to use an electromagnetic lock and was renamed Auto-Pilot by Chrysler for the Imperiale. Apparently, Titor was the head of the parts supplier founded by his family at the time, which allowed the technology to reach Cadillac in 1959. GM’s Lux division, in turn, will call it Cruise Control.
What is the difference between Chrysler’s Autopilot and Tesla’s Autopilot?
Chrysler’s Auto-Pilot had a simple primary purpose – to drive the car at a steady speed as a convenience and safety feature. The story goes that Teeter came up with the idea while his friend and lawyer, Harry Lindsay, was driving him to Detroit. Apparently Lindsay was the kind of pilot who was constantly accelerating and decelerating, which was causing a lot of trouble for Teeter.
As far as Tesla’s Autopilot is concerned, there’s still a lot of confusion about what it actually does – although there shouldn’t be. As Tesla Pointingly, the Autopilot package traditionally offers only two distinct functions: adaptive cruise control (Traffic Aware Cruise Control) and steering-assist capability in certain situations (Autosteer). Both of these functions were previously available by default for the Model 3 and Model Y, although Tesla now charges extra for Autosteer as part of its full self-driving package.
Remember, adaptive cruise control essentially combines regular cruise control with the ability to sense cars in the same lane. This allows the technology to slow your vehicle to maintain a set distance behind the vehicle in front of you. When traffic opens, the system gets you back up to speed.
The Tesla blog then correctly reminds people that Autopilot is considered a Level 2 technology by the SAE, which breaks down the level of autonomy into six different stages. Ford’s BlueCruise and GM’s Super Cruise are also classified as Level 2. The key point here is that when Level 2 systems are activated, you are still considered to be driving the car yourself, you are expected to monitor the driving environment, and be ready to take control at a moment’s notice.
