After Tesla introduced its Autopilot update (7.0) with the ‘Autosteer’ and ‘Auto Lane Change’ features for Model S in October last year, the automaker had to quickly rollback and disable the features for owners in Hong Kong after a formal request from regulators at the Transport Department.
Today, about 5 months later, Model S owners in Hong Kong are finally reporting having received a new update enabling the features following a greenlight from the government regulators.
In the latest update (v7.1.2.14.17), owners can now use the Autosteer, which automatically keeps the vehicle in the center of the lane on highways, and Auto Lane Change, which can maneuver between lanes simply by activating the turn signal.
Aside from the active safety features like Auto Emergency brakes, these two features constitute the bulk of the Autopilot. There’s also the active cruise control, but that was already available in Hong Kong, and everywhere else as well.
The summon feature unveiled earlier this year appears to still be unavailable in the city. It was launched in the US in January and started rolling out in Canada and Europe a few weeks ago.
In late January, Tesla CEO Elon Musk went to Hong Kong and had a meeting with the Transport Department to try to address their concerns. While addressing the crowd at a Tesla owners event, Musk said:
“We’ll be meeting with the government tomorrow – hopefully. We are going to have some conversations and hopefully they will consider allowing us to release Autopilot in Hong Kong. I’m cautiously optimistic it’s going to be a good meeting tomorrow (Tuesday Jan 26).”
Although it took over a month, it seems like the meeting was successful.
Hong Kong is an important market for Tesla where it delivered 2,221 Model S’s in the city as of last year.
Featured Image: Photographer David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
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