New Tesla Update Should Halve Autopilot Crashes
Tesla has released a remote update that should cut Autopilot accidents ‘in half’, says Elon Musk.
Major upgrades to the radar system software as part of Version 8 mean that Tesla cars will be able to bounce photons beneath the car in front to see whatever’s in front of that, picking up data that will allow Autopilot to react to the obstruction even if the driver can’t see it – and even if the driver in front doesn’t see it.
The company has had big problems trying to overcome the challenges posed by using radar in such a localised way, due to the odd ways the technology reacts to different objects and shapes. Tesla cites “a discarded soda can”, which when the concave base is facing the car “can appear to be a large and dangerous obstacle.”
The so-called ‘false alarm’ braking that would result from this has left radar on the sidelines behind the main Autopilot cameras and image processors. But now, Version 8 is allowing the same radar hardware to see six times as many radar-detectable objects and with a lot more information per object, the firm says.
By taking radar data every tenth of a second and comparing “several contiguous frames against vehicle velocity and expected path”, the system can now reportedly distinguish what is a real obstacle and what is a false alarm.
These false positives will be logged in the Tesla mainframe and eventually ignored by all the company’s cars.
Other areas will be taken care of by fleet learning, where over time, if a number of Teslas see a potential crash according to Autopilot but travel through it safely, that spot and those visual and radar criteria are eventually registered as safe. Complex stuff.
Initially, though, at places where there isn’t enough readable info for the car to react, it will do nothing. So it’s still not time to completely switch off behind the wheel. We’re looking at you, Autopilot abusing morons…
Comments
But does it come with a manual transmission??
Its only got one gear, so i guess if you’re liberal with the description; yes it kinda does.
The only date where the autopilot changes are on updates smh
I feel your pain. My phone only have 4gb to start and none left
If people are going to treat this car as fully autonomous on the motorway then really what the Model S needs are extra sensors installed at a higher position so that it can detect truck trailers. The cars system thinks it’s just a floating mattress at the moment and wouldn’t take action as it can’t actually see it.
Not saying you’re wrong or anything, but can you site a source for this? I’d be curious to see why it wouldn’t detect a trailer
Update failed! Free up some space? (Main problem when i update meh phone)
Read the title wrong - thought it said ‘new tesla update should have autopilot crashes’
I did the same thing. But I was more interested than after I read the title properly
credit to Geobaz
GeoBaz
“Tesla.exe has performed an illegal action due to a conflict with Dank_Memes.dll and will now shut down. Current progress will not be saved”
Or you could just drive the f*ckin thing yourself.
Or not support this idiot and not get a Tesla at all.
Yeah screw electric cars. Who cares about trying to save the environment, amiright?
Yay