Tesla is rolling out an update for its electric cars that will ensure better performance from its Autopilot mode. CEO Elon Musk is now saying that its newest update to its Autopilot program might have been able to avert that death entirely, reports Reuters. Tesla's Autopilot, introduced in October, has been the focus of intense scrutiny since it was revealed in July that a Tesla Model S driver, Joshua Brown, was killed while using the technology in a May 7 collision with a truck in Florida.
Now, in an effort to end such software problems, Tesla's incoming Autopilot 8.0 software update will overhaul how its radar systems and camera work in detecting potential hazards for the vehicle and pedestrians nearby. The object detection abilities will be "superhuman", Musk said.
"We are able to process that echo by using the unique signature of each radar pulse as well as the time of flight of the photon to determine that what we are seeing is in fact an echo in front of the auto that's in front of you".
"It's really about improving the probability of safety". Because of the white color of the side of the tractor trailer and the bright sky behind it, the Autopilot technology was not able to detect the oncoming vehicle. "There won't ever be zero fatalities, there won't ever be zero injuries", he said. The company said the Version 8.0 update will be released in the next two weeks.
The stand-out feature however is the new use of the radar sensors. It'll see objects in cars that the previous system could not see because the previous system was primarily camera-based.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating Tesla's Autopilot system since June because of the fatal accident.
The company's cars, it said, will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle it is trailing and still brake, avoiding a potential pile-up should the auto in front crash. Brown was the owner of a tech company and was also a Tesla enthusiast, taking to YouTube to post videos of him driving the Tesla Model S using the autopilot feature.
