There it is. How do the police stop these cars? Wait until a speck of dust messes with the computer system.
What about gps that doesn’t match up with the road?
So when you engage the system, the vehicle will generally follow the GPS route it "knows" because other Teslas have traveled this road. It uses optics and image processing to find the lines on either side of the lane to refine it's path. The radar is used to maintain separation from any vehicles in front.
If there is no GPS path for the road, or maybe it is only marginal (say only a few Teslas have driven through here before) then it will have to rely mostly on the optics. If the optic system gets confused - cannot find the lane markers with confidence - it will (or used to, when I test drove one) give a visual and audio warning that the driver needs to take over. Wet road, glare, dirt, faded or missing lines all can cause this. If it completely loses the lane, or even loses sufficient confidence in the lane position, and the driver isn't providing any steering inputs, it *should* (if I were programming it) reduce speed, coming to a smooth stop with hazards on.
What the police took advantage of here was the radar following function. If you're on cruise control at say 65 mph and roll up behind someone going only 60 mph it will slow to 60 mph and maintain a safe separation. If that person changes lanes it will accelerate back up to 65 mph. All the police had to do was get in front of it and slow down steadily. The Tesla will not automatically change lanes to go around a slow driver. So a single vehicle - any vehicle - can bring one to a stop.
They pull squad in front of vehicle then slow down to a stop