Watch Tesla Autopilot surprisingly handle a construction zone with the new update

We are just starting to understand the potential of Tesla Autopilot 2.0 following the latest software update that the automaker started pushing to its the fleet last week.

Now we see Tesla’s Autopilot handle a construction zone with the new update – something that we wouldn’t recommend trying.

As we previously reported, the latest update (2018.10.4) features a new neural net rewritten by Tesla’s new Director of AI and Autopilot Vision, Andrej Karpathy, and his team.

In November, code found in the Autopilot software showed that Tesla’s neural net is able to recognize construction zones and that the automaker is now using its fleet to recognize and categorize obstacles and corner cases for Autopilot to navigate.

Now with the latest update, we get the first evidence, albeit anecdotal, that Tesla’s Autopilot is able to handle a construction zone after the latest update.

Here’s a video that Model S owner John Sorenson sent us:

Electrek’s Take

First of all, let’s make it clear that you shouldn’t activate Autosteer in construction zones. The system is primarily built for highway driving and while Tesla enables the use of the driver assist systems on other roads and drivers are using them in other situations, they should be careful and always remain vigilant and be ready to take control.

With that said, the video is especially impressive since Autopilot was first following the lane markings, but it stopped following them into the construction zone and instead embarked on the bike lane – presumably following the traffic cones.

That’s quite impressive and another great example of the performance of the latest Autopilot update following the videos that we shared earlier today.

While it’s not Enhanced Autopilot and all the features promised with it, it does look like a solid basis to finally release some of those features.

The program is about a year late into its development, but it’s the most encouraging update in a while and it’s certainly raising hope for Elon Musk’s prediction that ‘self-driving will encompass all modes of driving by the end of next year’ to become a reality.