Tesla Motors (ticker: TSLA) has experienced backlash since news broke of its self-driving auto fatality back in May.
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Tesla hasn’t revealed a date for the rollout of the updates, but we’ll keep an eye on the situation. Musk also took the conference call as an opportunity to clear up the “Beta” label, stating: “It’s not really beta, it’s just that if something is described really clearly with “beta” you’re less likely to be complacent”. The update is also retroactive – it can be accessed by all new Teslas but also the Model S sedan and Model X crossover units produced after October 2014 – as they were all provided with radar sensors at the front.
Tesla did not give a date for the Autopilot update to be rolled out. Software 8.0 will use fleet learning to build up a 3D radar picture of objects. “The radar can see people, but they appear partially translucent”, he says. This essentially bounces radar sensor readings off the road and underneath the vehicle in front and then back off objects ahead of that.
Musk said it was “very likely” the improved Autopilot would have prevented the death of Brown, whose vehicle sped into the trailer of a truck crossing a highway, but he cautioned that the update “doesn’t mean ideal safety”. The safety upgrades will be part of the Tesla range’s next major software update, Tesla Version 8.0.
“If several cars drive safely past a given radar object, whether Autopilot is turned on or off, then that object is added to the geocoded whitelist”.
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The reason why Tesla’s autopilot wasn’t making this much use of its radar before now is how easy it is to trigger false positives. Mr. Musk said. Therefore, the bounce effect has been created to see ahead of a Tesla vehicle and still apply brakes, even if something can not sense by both radar and the vision. He added that the radar would apply brake in time to prevent frontal crash despite low visibility and “a big multi-car pileup” that can not be seen. Autopilot 2.0 will be a new feature requiring additional hardware. If the vehicle determines that the driver doesn’t have their hands on the wheel and throws its audible warning three times in an hour, it will lock the driver out of the feature.
