The Autopilot is Tesla’s advanced assisted driving program with features like Autosteer, Autopark, and Trafic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC).
The hardware suite was first introduced in Tesla’s vehicles in September 2014. The company gradually released more and more advanced features through over-the-air software updates until the first meaningful “Autopilot Update” in October 2015 with the release of v.7.0 of Tesla OS.
The price increase would seem to hint at Tesla introducing the new sensors in the vehicle right now, but the company claims otherwise. Expand Expanding Close
Aside from the tragic fatal accident in a Tesla Model S on Autopilot in May, almost every driver involved and the subsequent accidents on Autopilot admitted that they were not paying attention or were not ready to take over control at the time of the crash when using Tesla’s advanced driver assist features.
Since publishing our piece on the Autopilot 2.0 last week, there has been a lot of discussion about the possible availability of a retrofit for the new suite of sensors on the current Model S and Model X. A retrofit is indeed likely at some level, but not for all Tesla owners. Expand Expanding Close
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… Expand Expanding Close
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”. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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.”
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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.
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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.”
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. Expand Expanding Close
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.
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.
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. Expand Expanding Close
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
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. Expand Expanding Close
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. Expand Expanding Close
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