Reuters/Noah Berger
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a big announcement Wednesday night when the world had their attention turned to the presidential debate.
Musk announced that Tesla vehicles currently in production — which includes the Model X, Model S, and future Model 3 — will be equipped with new hardware that will enable them to be fully driverless. A Tesla vehicle will drive itself from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017 as a demonstration of the new technology.
Since fully driverless cars have yet to secure regulatory approval, owners of the new Tesla cars won't be able to turn on the self-driving capability just yet. However, the new hardware suite is providing Tesla cars with new Autopilot capabilities that customers could tap into as early as December of this year.
Tesla cars on the road today have Tesla's first generation Autopilot system that allows the cars to auto steer, change lanes, and merge onto highways. Convenience features built into first-generation Autopilot have also allowed the cars to park themselves, both in a perpendicular and parallel fashion.
The new hardware update is improving Autopilot, giving it the new name Enhanced Autopilot, and paving the way for Tesla cars to become fully autonomous later down the road. Here's our breakdown of the new system:
Tesla vehicles built between September 2014 and October 2016 were equipped with one camera used for Autopilot. But new Tesla cars are now being built with eight cameras that provide 360-degree visibility and 250 meters (820 feet) of range.Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty ImagesTesla cars still come with one radar sensor, but it comes with enhanced processing that allows it to see through heavy rain, fog, dust, and even a car right in front of it.Tesla
Tesla is also still using 12 ultrasonic sensors, the same as it did before, however they have been updated to detect hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the previous sensors.
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New Tesla cars will use Nvidia's Titan GPU, a new onboard computer system with 40 times the computing power of Tesla's previous system.Tesla
If you buy a new Tesla, you can opt to purchase the new Autopilot system, aptly named Enhanced Autopilot, for $5,000. That system will take advantage of four of the Tesla's eight cameras, as well as the radar, 12 sensors, and new onboard computing system mentioned before.Tesla
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- As the Apple car dies, Tesla pushes the envelope on self-driving
- Tesla cars are getting a powerful new brain to be able to drive themselves
- Elon Musk just said Tesla's product unveiling will be related to the Model 3
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk: Fully autonomous Tesla will drive across the country by the end of 2017
