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Abstract

Tesla auto lane change is a feature within Autopilot (AP) – a collection of automated driving features designed to assist the driver with automatic steering and adaptive cruise control. In order to determine how drivers engage in maneuvers performed automatically by AP, 5,154 manual and automated lane change events along with video, system data, and vehicle kinematics were extracted from over 691 hours of naturalistic driving from 19 different drivers. Findings indicate that drivers performed manual lane changes more frequently than auto lane changes despite the use of Autopilot being more prevalent than manual driving on motorways. Auto lane changes occurred at higher speed and were associated with fewer acceleration and braking events and narrower distributions of kinematic characteristics. The lower frequency and kinematic variability in auto lane changes may suggest that drivers use this feature in a limited set of circumstances.