Chrysler Debuted 'Auto-Pilot' Technology Way Back In 1958

In 1955, Chrysler launched a brand-new division centered around the striking Imperial luxury sedan that 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 would take on the likes of Cadillac and Lincoln. So it was only natural that the "flagship of the Forward Look" — as ad writers described it — focused on the latest high-tech innovations, and in 1958, that meant one of the first modern cruise-control systems: Auto-Pilot.

It wasn't anyone from Chrysler who invented the system, though. Instead, it was an engineer named Ralph Teetor who first filed for a patent on the technology in 1948. Teetor was one of the first blind graduates of the University of Pennsylvania, and is generally acknowledged as the country's first blind engineer. His mechanical inclinations began at a young age, as he designed and built his own 3-horsepower motor car when he was just 12. Teetor also has a part in the history of the automatic transmission with a patent for a fluid-operated gearshift granted in 1924, which was just one of more than 40 patents he earned in all before passing away in 1982.

Teetor's first go at the technology involved a physical mechanism that would increase gas-pedal resistance when the vehicle reached the preferred speed. By 1958, the so-called Speedostat had advanced to use an electromagnetic lock and was renamed Auto-Pilot by Chrysler for the Imperial. Teetor, to be clear, was the head of his family-founded parts supplier at the time, allowing the tech to get to Cadillac in 1959. GM's lux division, in turn, would call it Cruise Control.

Chrysler's Auto-Pilot had a simple primary purpose — to keep the car moving at a constant speed as a convenience and safety feature. The story goes that Teetor came up with the idea when he was being driven to Detroit by his friend and lawyer, Harry Lindsey. Lindsey apparently was the kind of pilot who was constantly speeding up and slowing down, much to Teetor's discomfort.

As for Tesla's Autopilot, there's still a lot of confusion about what it actually does — although there shouldn't be. As Tesla explains, the Autopilot package traditionally offered only two different functions: adaptive cruise control (Traffic Aware Cruise Control) and steering-assistance capability in some conditions (Autosteer). Both of these functions were previously available by default for the Model 3 and the Model Y, although Tesla now charges extra for Autosteer as a part of its Full Self-Driving package.

Adaptive cruise control, remember, essentially combines regular cruise control with the ability to also sense cars in the same lane. This allows the technology to slow your vehicle to keep a set distance behind the one in front of you. When traffic opens up, the system then brings you back up to speed.

The Tesla blog then correctly goes on to remind folks that Autopilot is considered Level 2 technology by the SAE, which breaks down autonomy levels into six separate stages. Ford's BlueCruise and GM's Super Cruise are categorized as Level 2, too. The key here is that even when Level 2 systems are active, you're still considered to be driving the car yourself, are expected to be supervising the driving environment, and should be ready to take over the controls at a moment's notice.