[kharak]

I've made the same observation. But I don't believe human drivers could reasonably take advantage of high acceleration, at least not as well as the simulated cars here. This is a great showcase of the usefulness of autonomous cars, though. Take humans out of the equation and traffic will flow.

[andrewstuart2]

The other thing that really seems to make the biggest difference (in combination with better acceleration) is following distance, which is another thing that presumably gets less important with autonomous cars because you don't really have to account for a relatively slow reaction time or poor braking.

The observation on acceleration does make me wonder whether teaching proper merging etiquette better (reach freeway speeds before you're at the merge junction) would make a significant difference if properly followed.

[epanchin]

How do autonomous cars deal with cheap or worn tyres? Is there still a lot of allowance for braking distance?

[bob1029]

Or weather/road conditions. Reaction time is irrelevant if you happen to be driving over an irregular/wet/oily/sandy/etc section of roadway at the moment maximum braking force is demanded.

[throwaway0a5e]

A burnout at the beginning of every drive cycle would do wonders for calibration.

[gnopgnip]

Autonomous cars still need to have adequate following distance. Without that one small problem turns into a 10+ car pileup.

[Daho0n]

Autonomous cars would be in contact with the cars ahead so it would react to car 1 braking, not number 9. IMO we will see this years before we see actual autonomous cars, no matter what fever dreams Elon Musk have.