Tesla Autopilot

Following a fender bender in a Tesla Model S on Autopilot in China last month and the driver’s allegation that Tesla told him the vehicle was “self-driving”, which was supported by Tesla using the words “zidong jiashi”, which translates to “self-driving”, on its Chinese website, Tesla has now removed any mention of the words and staff are reportedly undergoing more training to make sure they understand that Autopilot is not self-driving and drivers need to keep their hands on the wheel.
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Tesla introduced the first Autopilot hardware suite, a front-facing camera, a front-facing radar, and 360° ultrasonic sensor in September 2014. A year later, in October 2015, Tesla released the first ‘Autopilot update’ (v7.0) to introduce features like Autosteer and Autopark. While the automaker was able to significantly improve the software and release new features on the same hardware, the sensor suite still offers its limitations

Enter Autopilot 2.0. The next generation Autopilot will feature new hardware on which Tesla will incrementally push new features through over-the-air software updates. The new sensor suite will enable level 3 autonomous driving and potentially level 4 fully autonomous driving in a not too distant future.

We now have some concrete information on Tesla’s second generation Autopilot hardware and it is coming sooner than you might think…
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Last week, we reported on an accident in China involving a Tesla Model S hitting a car stuck on the side of the road while the Tesla was on Autopilot. The accident was caught on the driver’s dashcam and it showed a long delay during which the Tesla driver, Luo Zhen, could have taken control of the vehicle.

Luo has since admitted that he wasn’t paying attention and looking at his phone, but he says that he had a good reason to since he claims Tesla employees led him to believe he was buying a “self-driving car”.
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The convenience features of Tesla’s Autopilot, like Autosteer and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, are meant to reduce the driver’s workload and make driving a Tesla more convenient, and according to a Model X driver in Missouri, it can also help you survive a medical emergency when you are on the road.
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You might remember when we reported on a Tesla Model S driver in Switzerland publishing a video of his car crashing into a van after the vehicle Tesla’s Autopilot was following swerve halfway off his lane to pass a van on the side of the road.

Now a very similar accident happened in China and the Model S driver also caught the fender bender on his dashcam.
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During a conference call today, Elon Musk talked about Tesla’s progress in level 4 fully autonomous driving and while he didn’t want to make an announcement on the call, he said that it is coming sooner than people think:

“What we’ve got will blow people’s minds, it blows my mind …it’ll come sooner than people think.”

Musk’s most recent prediction placed the technology being ready in Q4 2017, around the time Model 3 will enter production.
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When we reported on the European Public Road Authority supporting Tesla’s Autopilot system following some concerns over the use of the word ‘Autopilot’ and the program being in ‘beta’ earlier this month, we also mentioned that a bigger concern could be Mercedes calling its E-Class with ‘Drive-Pilot’ a ‘self-driving car’ in an advert, which is significantly more misleading than Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’.

Now we learn that the automaker is pulling the ad following Consumer Reports complaint to the FTC.
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Tesla is undoubtedly pushing its Autopilot program quickly, but the company says that its focus is safety. CEO Elon Musk is on record saying that he sees the current version of the program as safer than a human driving without all of Tesla’s semi-autonomous driver assist features – adding that not releasing the system is “killing people with statistics”.

Yet, some Tesla Autopilot engineers are reportedly uncomfortable with the pace of the deployment of the program, according to a new report from CNN.
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The news that Tesla and Mobileye are parting ways over the development of the Autopilot program was surprising for some yesterday, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk has since commented on the news calling it “inevitable”.

Now Tesla’s Autopilot Program Director, Sterling Anderson, is adding some color to the change of direction, saying that Tesla is looking to move quickly in autonomous driving and in order to do that, they need a “tight integration” of both hardware and software. Something they can do better if more of the program is developed in-house.
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We reported this morning that Mobileye confirmed that it will end its partnership with Tesla for the development of the Autopilot program. The company’s EyeQ3 chip, which is currently in Tesla’s vehicles, will still be supported but the company will move away from the system in future iterations of the Autopilot.

Now Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on the move saying that “it will not have any material effect on [Tesla’s] plans” and that the company will focus on a more integrated system.
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The National Transportation Safety Board Office of Public Affairs (NTSB) released its preliminary report following the start of its investigation of the fatal May 7, 2016, highway crash involving a Tesla Model S on Autopilot and a semitrailer.

The preliminary report doesn’t contain much information or any analysis of the accident, but it did confirm for the first time the speed of the Tesla. According to the NTSB, the Model S was driving at 74 mph while the speed limit was 65 mph.

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In a conference call discussing its second quarter financial results today, Mobileye confirmed that it will end its partnership with Tesla for the development of the Autopilot program. Tesla’s Autopilot system was designed in-house by the automaker and uses several different components, but Mobileye was an important partner supplying its EyeQ chip which processes the information from the Autopilot sensor’s suite.

The reason for the two companies parting ways is not entirely clear at this point, but based on Mobileye CTO Amnon Shashua’s comments, it might have something to do with the aftermath of the fatal Autopilot accident in a Model S, which first surfaced a few weeks ago.
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Tesla’s Autopilot program has been getting bad press lately following a few accidents involving some features of the system, but there’s been virtually no attention to events where the Autopilot prevented or helped prevent accidents, or reduced the severity of an unavoidable impact.

Those instances can be described as non-events and therefore, they don’t get as much attention as the crashes, especially if they come with pictures of the aftermath which plays to our collective curiosity, but that doesn’t mean that those events are less important or any less impressive.
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On Friday, we published an update on what is now being called the “Montana Tesla Autopilot Crash”. Our report featured a new public letter from the Model X owner involved in the accident, known as Mr. Pang, in which he claimed that Tesla didn’t contact him after the fact and was “covering up” the accident by quickly putting the blame on him.

At the time, we asked Tesla to comment on the new allegations, but the company referred to its previous statement on the accident. Today, the automaker decided to respond directly in its own public letter to Mr. Pang in order to address the situation.
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Via John Stoll at WSJ, Mark Rosekind , the head administrator of NHTSA, stated last week at a conference in Detroit that the auto industry and the utilization of Tesla’s Autopilot “can’t wait until it’s perfect.”

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In the past few weeks, three accidents involving Tesla vehicles on Autopilot made the headlines. Tesla was quick to place the blame with the drivers for two of the accidents, one in Pennsylvania and one in Montana, both involving brand new Model X SUVs.

In both cases, the automaker says that the vehicle logs show that drivers ignored several alerts to take control of the vehicles before the accidents. In both cases, the drivers were also cited by the police for careless driving – giving some weight to Tesla’s claims, but now the driver of the Model X in the Montana crash is coming back with a public letter to Tesla and Elon Musk claiming a “cover-up” of the problems with the Autopilot.
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The Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) of Tesla’s Autopilot reportedly saved the life or prevented serious injury of a pedestrian in Washington DC last week. The event was reported to Tesla by a Model S owner and the automaker confirmed the event through the vehicle logs, according to Elon Musk.

You can find the full transcript of the email below:
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Since we first reported on Tesla’s v8.0 software update being tested in beta, the company has been pushing a few new versions prior to the wide release in order to refine the improvements – primarily to the Autopilot – but a recent comment by CEO Elon Musk raises an interesting question.

V8 will be our biggest release since v1, so taking longer to refine. Awesome on every level. Meeting w design team every day.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2016

It’s a bold statement. We spoke to a few people who tested both v7.0 and v8.0. They mostly agree that v7.0 was a significantly bigger update to Tesla’s OS than the upcoming v8.0, but there could be more to it than what Tesla released in beta to testers.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been working on the second part of his ‘Master Plan’ for the past two weeks and he is now a little late. While flying back to California after spending the past few days in Florida for a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, the CEO said that he will be focusing on the Tesla Model 3 and Autopilot today, consequently pushing the ‘Master Plan’  again:

Will be working at Tesla on Autopilot & Model 3 today, then aiming to pull an all-nighter and complete the master product plan

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2016

It’s the tenth anniversary of the debut of the Roadster today. Some hoped it would coincide with the release of the plan, which Musk hoped to publish last week, but it looks like it will be pushed to at least tomorrow.

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New Tesla Model X owners are reporting receiving their vehicles with a dual front-facing camera housing instead of one for only a single camera. The same housing has been spotted in the Model X before, but what is particularly interesting here is that it could be the first time that it was delivered with the second side exposed.
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The limits of the Autopilot under its current suite of sensors have been debated for a while, especially since Tesla has been discussing an upcoming second-generation hardware for the program to allow fully autonomous driving.

But last night, Elon Musk announced that “certainly moderate and maybe big advances” are possible with Tesla’s current sensors.
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