New Tesla Autopilot to Support Traffic Lights, Roundabouts, and Full Self-driving
Besides the advanced driver assist features of the Tesla's Autopilot 2.0 program - such as the ‘Navigate on Autopilot’, Tesla CEO teased with even more important new developments coming "soon".
Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday posted on Twitter that the Autopilot sofwtare for the latest Tesla vehicles will support traffic lights, stops and roundabouts, which he says will lead to full self-driving capability.
Tesla is testing a neural net that recognizes top lights and traffic lights and will allow the vehicles to take action based on them.
It’s not clear when these new features are coming, although Musk has been saying recently that he thinks ‘self-driving will encompass all modes of driving by the end of next year’. This means that Tesla will have to bring to production a new neural net computer very soon. Until then, Tesla Autopilot remains a level 2 driver assist system and drivers should be ready to take control pf their cars at any time.
Tesla is also working on the Autopilot’ Summon feature. According to Musk, Tesla owners will be able to remotely control their car through their phones ‘like RC cars’ by the end of the year.
For those not familiar with the recently announced 'Navigate on Autopilot' feature, it is an active guidance feature for Enhanced Autopilot (Software Version 9.0 and up) that, with driver supervision, guides a car from a highway’s on-ramp to off-ramp, including suggesting and making lane changes, navigating highway interchanges, and taking exits.
The feature, which has begun to roll out in the U.S., will initially require drivers to confirm lane changes using the turn stalk before the car moves into an adjacent lane. But Tesla says that future versions of Navigate on Autopilot will allow customers to waive the confirmation requirement if they choose to. In both of these scenarios, until truly driverless cars are validated and approved by regulators, drivers are responsible for and must remain in control of their car at all times.
Navigate on Autopilot is built exclusively for Tesla's Enhanced Autopilot platform, which includes a onboard computer, ultrasonic sensors, radar, and external cameras that feed our Tesla-developed neural net. Machine learning algorithms allow Tesla's cars to collect and process data in milliseconds.