The stand-out feature however is the new use of the radar sensors.
Advertisement
Currently, Tesla vehicles primarily use cameras to scan the road ahead, but with Autopilot 8.0, the electric vehicles will lean more on radar technology to move about safely.
There’s also a new setting that forces a driver to park and restart their auto if they ignore three warnings within an hour to keep their hands on the wheel.
The update will be rolled out through a software update over the next few weeks.
The 2015 Tesla Model S struck a 53-foot-trailer when the Autopilot failed to detect it because of poor weather and low luminosity.
Autopilot was launched by Tesla last October, to allow drivers to hand over some responsibility for controlling its cars to the cars themselves.
While Ford Motor Co. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google espouse an all-or-nothing approach – saying that only fully autonomous cars are safe – Tesla has introduced driver-assist technology in “beta” form.
The improvements to Autopilot come in the wake of a number of high-profile accidents allegedly involving the Autopilot self-driving system but Tesla CEO Elon Musk is keen to emphasise that this is not a case of issues with Autopilot technology being fixed. It’s really about improving the probability of safety – that’s the only thing that really ever possible.
The administration has been investigating the matter to find out if the accident has taken place from any safety defect in the Autopilot. Musk said it was “very likely” that the updated Autopilot software would have saved Brown, but he cautioned that the update “doesn’t mean flawless safety”. “There won’t ever be zero fatalities”, Musk stated.
Fleet learning will also help radar vision become more intelligent as information to added to the Tesla database and analyzed.
Not only that, the cars will start mapping the world in radar, which will result in them more accurately being able to predict when to break.
“I am highly confident this will be a substantial improvement”, Musk told reporters.
Advertisement
Silicon Valley-based Tesla is known for its innovation in luxury electric vehicles but some critics, including rival carmakers, have said it was hasty in rolling out Autopilot.
