Tesla said Thursday that Mobileye tried to force it to abandon efforts to develop its own image-sensing capabilities and demanded that the maker of electric cars pay more for a continuing supply of some hardware. Mobileye, an Israeli company that is a leader in vision systems for vehicles, further alleged in its filing that Musk promised in a subsequent face-to-face meeting with Mobileye Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Amnon Shashua that its Autopilot system would require drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.
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Tesla’s Autopilot clashed with Mobileye’s system enough for the Israel-based maker of collision detection and driver assistance systems to have broken ties with the electric carmaker, Mobileye’s chairman said on Wednesday.
Tesla’s driver assist feature continues to come under scrutiny, particularly after a crash in the southeastern US state of Florida killed a 40-year-old occupant in May when Autopilot equipment failed to distinguish the white siding on a tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky. A Tesla spokeswoman said this week that the company had never described Autopilot as an autonomous technology or self-driving vehicle.
Tesla responded that it sufficiently educates its customers on their responsibilities as drivers when Autopilot is engaged.
A few weeks after the first self-driving fatality, in a Tesla Model S, Mobileye made a decision to sever ties with the electric vehicle company. When videos, for example, emerged showing drivers using the feature entirely, Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, publicly expressed his concern.
Issues on the Autopilot led the company to put limits on the design in January.
The US National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the death of a 40-year-old Tesla driver in Florida.
The pronouncement also cited an inability on the part of Mobileye to keep pace with the development of Tesla’s products as a factor in that decision.
Musk also said the revised system will allow a driver’s hands to be off the wheel for up to three minutes while following a auto at highway speeds.
The public fingerpointing is rare in the industry. But Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua is now firing back in words that nearly call out Tesla for being reckless.
Beyond giving radar a greater role, Tesla’s upcoming Autopilot update will ensure drivers stay alert when using Autopilot.
Tesla and Mobileye are clearly not happy with each other. However, Tesla responded that there’s no way to learn whether Autopilot was engaged as the vehicle was unable to transmit any logs during the crash.
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Mr Gao’s lawyer said Tesla had been in contact after they filed the lawsuit in a Beijing court in July, but they had yet to reach agreement with the company.
