Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk, has announced that his company will soon release a major update for its Autopilot feature.
The announcement carries a lot of weighty expectations from the firm considering the recent controversies and probes on the Autopilot feature following numerous accidents involving Tesla vehicles. The new efforts to improve the Autopilot software come just a few weeks after rising controversy over accidents that took place when the drivers had activated the Autopilot feature.
Elon Musk, the CEO stated in one of his tweets that, “major improvements to Autopilot coming with V8.0 and 8.1 software (std OTA update) primarily through advanced processing of radar signals.”
The accidents that reportedly took place while Autopilot was active aroused probes on the autonomous driving feature, causing the company to go back to the drawing board. Musk stated that more details will be released with regards to the upcoming major update for Autopilot. The CEO, however, hinted that the changes would mainly focus on advanced radar signals processing. Tesla’s Autopilot feature relies on ultrasonic sensors, radar sensors, and cameras to control the steering of the vehicles.
The self-driving feature, however, faced a lot of negativity and controversy in the last few months due to cases where people have been involved in crashes when the autopilot was active. Some of the accidents were fatal and the company was called upon to explain why the system failed to function as expected. Tesla, however, defended itself claiming that it had issued a warning that drivers should always be watchful and ready to take over when need be.
There are rumors and speculation that the upcoming update will feature the ability to automatically disengage the autopilot feature in instances where the vehicle requires the driver to take over. This means drivers will have to take back control of the vehicle. To add to that, it will not be possible to re-engage the Autopilot feature unless the driver stops and puts the vehicle in park.
