Tesla co-chief executive Elon Musk says that a future, planned update to the semi-autonomous Autopilot system would have prevented a fatal crash this year.
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The company says it’s made more than 200 improvements to its software with this update, including a change that will lock inattentive drivers out of Autopilot mode if they don’t take the wheel when the vehicle issues an audible warning three times in an hour.
The new update to the Autopilot system, Version 8, will make more prominent use of radar to process signals from the car’s surroundings.
Autopilot was launched by Tesla last October, to allow drivers to hand over some responsibility for controlling its cars to the cars themselves.
Tesla has announced plans to update its Autopilot function to include new features to prevent collisions.
“I wish we could have done it earlier, but flawless is the enemy of good”, Musk said. It’s really about improving the probability of safety – that’s the only thing that really ever possible.
The challenge in using radar is in avoiding “false alarms”, he added, where small objects like cans could be interpreted as a threat.
“When the data shows that false braking events would be rare, the auto will begin mild braking using radar, even if the camera doesn’t notice the object ahead”.
That should help Tesla further reduce the chances of people being injured in their cars while using Autopilot mode.
Using radar and fleet learning, rather than relying primarily on cameras, would solve that problem, Musk said. The fact that radar is already installed in all Model S vehicles means that the change is largely a software one – the upgrade can take place without drivers needing to head to a shop.
Tesla claims that the features help the auto prevent hazards and reduce the driver’s workload.
All radar-equipped Model S and Model X cars from the past two years will benefit from the downloadable update, due out in the next couple of weeks. Ignoring of repeated warnings will disengage Autopilot and prevent its use until the vehicle is parked.
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After careful consideration, we now believe it can be used as a primary control sensor without requiring the camera to confirm visual image recognition. Until now the camera was the primary source of information for the vehicle to develop an image of the world around it.
