Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Tesla takes one giant step towards driverless cars overnight
Google and Apple are jumping into the automotive space with their visions of fully autonomous vehicles, it is only a matter of time before us humans take a backseat, quite literally, on the road. However, Tesla Motors, the fully-electric carmaker and the brainchild of real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk, is already a step ahead of the curve. In addition to having hundreds of thousands of its cars already on the road – compared to its counterparts which are still in various stages of R&D – Tesla also has the benefit of pushing out updates to cars already sold, over the air, just as you’d receive a newer version of your phone’s operating system from your smartphone manufacturer.
Tesla can now claim its position in history as the first production car to introduce a driverless mode. Today, it released a software update to some of its Model S and Model X fleet with four features for autonomous driving smarts. You might remember that a year ago, Tesla introduced autopilot hardware to its newest Model S vehicles — digital cameras, radar and sonar that map a car’s surroundings and equip it to drive itself. Now, the new software unlocks that potential for those cars as well as Tesla’s new Model X SUV launched last month.
There’s a catch, though, and you might have been expecting it to drop anytime now: you can’t exactly nap in the back while being chauffeured around in beautiful, electric silence with this update. The reason will become clearer when we tell you what Tesla has named its driverless feature. It is called “Autopilot.” Yes, like the one on planes.
And it works in pretty much the same way too. Like airplane pilots with takeoffs and landings, the driver will still be expected to handle much of the subtle and strange ballet that is modern driving. The human will still have to keep her hands on the wheel every few seconds, as a safety measure, and to meet state laws that demand a hand on the wheel. For its part, the car will manage lane-keeping, mind the gap to the car in front and behind, and handle much of the braking and acceleration.
Tesla can now claim its position in history as the first production car to introduce a driverless mode. Today, it released a software update to some of its Model S and Model X fleet with four features for autonomous driving smarts. You might remember that a year ago, Tesla introduced autopilot hardware to its newest Model S vehicles — digital cameras, radar and sonar that map a car’s surroundings and equip it to drive itself. Now, the new software unlocks that potential for those cars as well as Tesla’s new Model X SUV launched last month.
There’s a catch, though, and you might have been expecting it to drop anytime now: you can’t exactly nap in the back while being chauffeured around in beautiful, electric silence with this update. The reason will become clearer when we tell you what Tesla has named its driverless feature. It is called “Autopilot.” Yes, like the one on planes.
And it works in pretty much the same way too. Like airplane pilots with takeoffs and landings, the driver will still be expected to handle much of the subtle and strange ballet that is modern driving. The human will still have to keep her hands on the wheel every few seconds, as a safety measure, and to meet state laws that demand a hand on the wheel. For its part, the car will manage lane-keeping, mind the gap to the car in front and behind, and handle much of the braking and acceleration.
