Tesla enables Autosteer on ‘local roads’ for new Enhanced Autopilot vehicles

There have been a lot of changes recently to Tesla’s Autopilot and it’s sometimes hard to keep track – especially since it has been split between first generation Autopilot (AP1) and second generation Autopilot (AP2) or ‘Enhanced Autopilot’.

The features of the second generation are still catching up to the first under the new hardware suite and software architecture using ‘Tesla Vision’. The latest change has been pushed to the first AP2 cars today and it enables Autosteer on ‘local roads’, but with a few restrictions.

Tesla has been geoblocking the use of some Autopilot features since last year in order to force users to primarily use the system where it was originally supposed to be used; on highways.

Vehicles equipped with the first generation Autopilot were still able to use Autosteer, Autopilot’s main feature which enables automatic steering, on undivided roads, but with severe speed restrictions – though they were later relaxed a little.

AP2 vehicles were limited to divided roads (highways) since the launch last month, but the new update today opens up the Autosteer feature to what Tesla is now calling “local roads” up to a speed of 35 mph.

There are also other restrictions. Tesla wrote in the release notes of the new v8.0(17.5.36) update:

• speed limit of the road plus an additional 5 mph, or
• speed limit of the road plus the speed limit offset you’ve specified (ln Settings
  Driver Assistance)

Aside from the 35 mph limit, the restrictions are similar to AP1 cars since the latest update in January.

Owners should start receiving the update today. Once the fleet is updated, Tesla will be able to collect more data and gradually lift some of the restrictions in order to get to parity with the first generation system.

It’s taking Tesla longer than anticipated as other features found in AP1, like ‘Summon’ and ‘Autopark’, are still not available under the new system. The new target is to reach parity next month and start surpassing the first generation from there with the help of the additional sensors, more computer power, and Tesla’s own image processing technology.