Items tagged with autopilot
We haven't heard much about the Tesla Semi in recent months, but development of the revolutionary electric vehicle (EV) is still ongoing and new interest in the vehicle sparked this week in a tweet. Despite the "production hell" that Tesla is currently experiencing with the Model 3 -- along with accusations of internal sabotage -- Elon Musk has given an update via Twitter on one peculiar feature that is under development for Autopilot: a Mad Max mode. Fully autonomous vehicles tend to take a more cautious approach when it comes to lane changes, leaving a few car lengths in between vehicles...
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On March 23, a Tesla Model X driver died after his vehicle drifted from its intended driving path and plowed into a concrete highway barrier. A subsequent investigation by Tesla determined that Autopilot was engaged during the time of the crash, and that that driver had not touched the steering wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. As is usually the case with these kinds of incidents, Tesla is off course trying to shift blame away from itself, and in this case is placing it on the deceased driver. This became even more apparent this week as the family of the deceased driver, Walter...
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Tragedy struck last week for a man and his family in California. The man was driving in his Tesla Model X when the vehicle struck a concrete barrier on Highway 101 near Mountain View -- he died as a result of the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has been investigating to determine if the Autopilot feature was engaged, and now Tesla has now confirmed that it was in fact turned on at the time of the accident. Tesla wrote, "In the moments before the collision, which occurred at 9:27 a.m. on Friday, March 23rd, Autopilot was engaged with the adaptive cruise control follow-distance...
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If you are the lucky owner of a Hardware 2.0 (HW2) Tesla Model X or Model S, a new software update is beaming down to your vehicle that enables some new functionality. The Tesla 8.1 software update brings with it a number of updates for the Autopilot 2.0 system and adds some UI improvement for the vehicles’ massive display screens. With respect to Autopilot 2.0, many of the features simply bring functionality to parity with the first-generation Autopilot system. Tesla has improved Autosteer, which now allows the vehicle to steer on the highway at speeds up to 80 mph (previously, the limit was 45...
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Tesla is one of the hottest companies around these days, and it is continually adding new talent to help bolster its self-driving operations. And increasingly, Tesla has been picking its top prospects from Apple’s deep bench. Early last year, Tesla secured Jim Keller, an engineer that spearheaded both AMD K8 and Apple A-Series chip efforts, in order to lead in-house development of Autopilot hardware. This week, Tesla managed to steal the head of Apple’s Swift programming language: Chris Lattner. Lattner is settling in with his new role as Vice President of Autopilot Software at Tesla. He takes...
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Tesla recently brought some New Year’s joy to owners of recently-delivered Model S and Model X EVs. CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that brand new Autopilot software for HW2 vehicles has been pushed out to roughly 1,000 vehicles. In case you were wondering, HW2 stands for Hardware 2.0, which includes all the necessary hardware for full self-driving capabilities. All vehicles made since October are HW2-compliant. Tesla described HW2 in October, writing: Eight surround cameras provide 360-degree visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement...
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We often hear about everything that goes wrong when it comes to Tesla’s Autopilot system that is featured on the Model S and Model X (and soon, the Model 3). But what about when it gets everything right and helps to avoid an accident? Avoiding an accident might be a common occurrence for Autopilot, but what about when it predicts an imminent crash — two cars ahead of you? That is exactly what happened in The Netherlands. You can see a Tesla Model X cruising along in the left lane, while the vehicle directly in front of it is speeding along seemingly oblivious to what is taking place ahead. However,...
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The self-driving car evolution is coming and we had better be prepared for it. Google/Alphabet has formed a new company, Waymo, which will plot a course forward for autonomous vehicle operations. The company already has a fleet of 100 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans coming online, and it is currently in talks with Honda to add even more vehicles to the fray. This is in addition to Google’s existing fleet of Lexus and Toyota hybrid vehicles and efforts from other tech companies like NVIDIA, which just got authorization for testing for its Drive PX2 systems in California, various auto manufacturers...
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We like things that are awesome. You probably like things that are awesome, too (we're not going out on much of a limb with that assumption). So, do you want to know something that's awesome that we stumbled upon? Sure you do, which is why we're sharing a video of Tesla's Autopilot technology in action, though not as you've seen it before. The video doesn't just show an autonomous vehicle weaving driving through a city, it uses highlighted color coding so that we can see what the sensors see. Tesla has put a ton of work into its Autopilot technology. Vehicles equipped with Autopilot have eight...
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Tesla is running into more roadblocks with its Autopilot functionality, which is found on its Model S and Model X EVs. The use of Autopilot, which allows a vehicle to operate semi-autonomously with minimal driver interaction, has come under increasing scrutiny ever since a driver was killed on a Florida highway over the summer. Now the German government is stepping in by asking Tesla to stop using the term Autopilot. German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt sent the request in a letter to the American automaker on Friday. In the letter, the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) stated, "In...
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As anyone who's ever been in a committed relationship that eventually ended can attest, breakups aren't always smooth or amicable. The same goes in the business world. Proof of that is playing out right before our very eyes as Tesla Motors and Mobileye engage the media in a game of he-said-she-said over why the two parted ways. According to Tesla, it has nothing to do with safety concerns related to the automaker's Autopilot technology, as Mobileye indicated to the press a day earlier.From Tesla's perspective, Mobileye is acting like a scorned ex-lover and ticked at the automaker's decision to...
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Mobileye parted ways with Tesla not long after the first death was reported of a driver using Tesla’s Autopilot system. At the time, Mobileye didn’t exactly explain its reasoning (although it was pretty obvious) and Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that Mobileye simply couldn’t keep up with this company’s rapid advancements in technology for its vehicles and that “our parting ways was inevitable.” This week, Mobileye chief technology officer Amnon Shashua has shed additional light on why it decided to leave Tesla at the altar. Shashua accused Tesla of “pushing the envelope in terms of safety” and that...
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Tesla is in the process of upgrading its Autopilot system to better 'see' the world surrounding world and discern from potentially dangerous objects that need to be avoided and those that don't require braking. Several of the changes that will ultimately lead to a smarter Autopilot system have been introduced in version 8 of its software. Version 8 contains dozens of small refinements, though the most significant upgrade is that of more advanced signal processing that taps the onboard radar to create a picture of the outside world. This represents a major change in strategy for Tesla and its Autopilot...
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Yet another agency is looking into a fatal crash involving a 2015 Tesla Model S. The latest to don its detective cap is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is investigating whether Tesla ran afoul of securities regulations by not telling investors of the crash involving the company's self-driving car technology. The accident occurred in early May and took the life of Joshua Brown, the owner of the Model S that struck an 18-wheeler when the tractor trailer crossed in front of him on a divided highway. At the time of the accident, the vehicle's Autopilot mode was engaged. Unfortunately...
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