Tesla has announced the public beta release of its first version of Autopilot, which will be available on Thursday. Company chief executive Elon Musk said that every one of its vehicles from September 2014 will have this feature overnight. However, in the short-term, he cautioned that it’s very important that people “exercise caution” and that they keep their hands on the wheel. But in the long-term, it’s all good.
Musk shared that the newly-labeled Autosteer feature uses a variety of measures aimed at keeping the driver on the road while having a great driving experience. It utilizes a deep learning algorithm to help the vehicle perform better. This is somewhat amusing because Musk has made it clear how he feels about artificial intelligence. To that he remarked: “I don’t think that we have anything to worry about with cars driving themselves,” Musk joked. “They’re not going to take over the world.”
During this next phase, Telsa is relying on the help of its customers. “Each driver is a trainer in how the autopilot should work,” Musk said. There are some things that the vehicle may not be totally prepared for, like totally recognizing stop signs and traffic lights, but in future versions will address this. Musk says that Autosteer had been in testing for over a year.
Vehicles will rely on four major sensor systems. The first is ultrasonic sensors that Musk says will tell the computer what’s around the perimeter of the car (a 16 feet radius). The second sensor comes from the forward-facing camera which helps determine where the lanes are, what cars are ahead of it, and can read speed signs. Other data points come from the forward radar that’s used to detect fast-moving objects and can see through rain, fog, and dust and finally pulling from GPS plus high-precision digital maps. Combined, these help guide the car on its journey.
How will Tesla’s autopilot fare against poorly drawn lane markings on the road? Musk says that originally the system couldn’t figure out where the lane actually is. To compensate, the car will ignore the visual sensor and rely on navigational GPS.
Other updates that will be coming with Tesla’s version 7.0 software update is automatic emergency steering and side collision warning which will alert you if an object approaches the side of the car. Tesla Model S vehicles will also have the ability to autopark so no more worrying about parallel parking, just locate a parking spot and let your vehicle do the rest.
From VentureBeat
Musk had teased out the announcement about auto-driving earlier this week saying that Tesla’s version 7 software would include Autopilot. Word of this capability took place in 2014 at a press event at the auto manufacturer’s facility in Southern California. It’s been thought that Tesla’s Model S would be the first vehicles equipped with Autopilot mode, but it’s likely that all Tesla models will soon have this capability.
Previously, Musk says that his company has tested this mode on a route from San Francisco, Calif. to Seattle, Wash. At the time he proclaimed: “We’re now almost able to travel all the way from San Francisco to Seattle without the driver touching any controls at all…That’s a feature that requires a lot of validation testing, but we’re hoping that we can start releasing the first sort of auto-steering features in about three months or so.” That was in March and so it’s more like six. However, it’s still a big milestone for Tesla and fans of its vehicles.
Tesla’s foray into self-driving cars comes as there are more companies trying to get into the space, both from a self-driving and electric vehicle perspective, including the likes of Uber, Google, and of course Apple. And Musk hasn’t shied away from telling the world what he thinks about them. In an interview with Handelsblatt, Musk equated the iPhone maker to being a “Tesla Graveyard” for those engineers that just can’t cut it at his company. Of course he quickly backtracked, saying that he didn’t hate Apple and that it was a “great company with a lot of talented people.”
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