Tesla’s Massive New Autopilot Update Is Released, Promising Safer Driving
A long-heralded update to Tesla Motor’s Autopilot has just been made available for download. First reports suggest that it’s as big a change in the semiautonomous driving system as Tesla CEO Elon Musk had promised.
One key element of the upgrade is making more use of the car’s existing radar capabilities, both to perceive the road in real time and to map it so that subsequent Tesla cars can distinguish earlier fixed features from new, perhaps threatening ones. Another key element is saving drivers from over-dependence on the software.
Either of those points might have saved the Tesla owner who died last May when his Autopilot, apparently unsupervised by the driver, drove into the side of a tractor trailer. That is the first fatality known to have been caused by a modern robotic driving system.
More: Tesla’s Massive New Autopilot Update Is Released, Promising Safer Driving - IEEE Spectrum