According to an Elon Musk tweet, Tesla is updating its autopilot version with full self-driving features. Does this mean that Tesla cars will go autonomous in a real sense and wouldn’t require the driver’s input at all?
Tesla’s Update to Full Self-Driving Features
The news about the Tesla’s expected update in its Autopilot to include the self-driving features made its stock rally up to as much as 5 percent.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s C.E.O announced about the update while responding to a tweet from the user Anand Krishnamurthy who complained about the improper working of autopilot during the merging of lanes.
Speaking of merging and autopilot the biggest issue i have noticed is when two lanes merge and it is rush hour traffic. The autopilot is not able to decide to let the car slightly ahead on the neighboring lane go ahead and I invariably find myself cornered !
— Anand Krishnamurthy (@anandrajk) 10 June 2018
Elon Musk not only told that the issue was better now but also heralded about enabling Tesla V9 version to have full self-driving features.
That issue is better in latest Autopilot software rolling out now & fully fixed in August update as part of our long-awaited Tesla Version 9. To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 10 June 2018
What Are Those Features
Tesla’s C.E.O didn’t explain what he meant when he referred to the full self-driving features update in V9. Does this say that Tesla is bringing a new kind of driverless cars that still require human hands on wheels and eyes on roads? Despite a lot of the hype around these tech-powered modern day vehicles, there is a lot of debate on whether driverless cars are the reality or fantasy.
At present Tesla’s autopilot cars are at level 2. The vehicles have an enhanced autopilot feature that acts as driver’s assistant while the control of the car still remains with the driver.
While the company also reportedly envisions to bring the cars that will take passengers to the destinations and not the drivers. Such cars will have the ability to probe the right parking place, make its way through the traffic and offer a pick and drop to the passenger when he/she calls the vehicle through a smartphone app. In order to integrate all these full self-driving features, the company will probably need to go far away. Therefore one can’t anticipate if August’s update of Tesla V9 will bring completely autonomous vehicles.
Future of Self-Driving Cars
One can rate the vehicle autonomy on levels 0 to levels 5. It is on the level 5 when the car becomes fully autonomous. Many tech giants including Google, Uber and car manufacturers like Tesla are planning to bring self-driving cars, but they don’t seem to be becoming a reality shortly. Even, Tesla’s autopilot cars that still require control of driver faced crashes in different locations. Last year, Uber suspended self-driving cars due to accidents.
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