After Tesla started pushing a new Autopilot update to the fleet last week, we reported on some of the first drive videos showing impressive improvements to Tesla’s semi-autonomous driver assist system.
Now the update has reached more Tesla owners and they have been able to test the new software more thoroughly – giving us a better look at the latest version of Autopilot.
The update works on Autopilot 2.0/2.5 cars and owners who reached out to Electrek are seeing a significant improvement in lane detection, a reduction of “ping-ponging” within a lane, and a generally better experience when Autosteer is activated.
As we previously reported, the update is the same that was beta-tested a month ago and features a brand new and heavier neural net to feed Tesla’s computer vision technology.
It’s the first major update since Andrej Karpathy, Tesla’s new head of AI, took over the leadership of the computer vision team at Tesla.
He called this new version (2018.10.4) a “fairly extensive rewrite” of the driver assist system’s software and added that they are still polishing it:
It's very rewarding to watch the early feedback on our latest Autopilot update: https://t.co/6K1ROFrlDK a result of a fairly extensive rewrite. Working hard to get more of it polished and out there!
— Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) March 16, 2018
Our article that he is referencing was only “early feedback” as he mentioned with a few quick first drive videos, but now owners had more time with the update and it also reached a wider number of Autopilot 2.0 Tesla owners in the fleet.
It means that we get to see the system in operation in a lot more different environments and conditions with more opinions on its performance by different owners.
Here are a few of the most interesting ones in our opinion:
This one gives a good look at the performance of the system in local roads with clear markings:
Here’s what the driver had to say about the update:
“Big improvements in this version. Lane centering seems noticeably improved. Turning, while still generally staying within lanes, is sharper and is keeping the car more “centered” in the lane. Still no speed limit signs, local road lane change, or displaying vehicles in adjacent lanes, but one area of BIG improvement was detection of stopped cars. The car started stopping far earlier than I’d ever seen before on HW2 and drifted to a stop slowly and comfortably.”
Now here’s another good video demonstration of the latest update on local roads, but in a more rural environment with worse lane markings:
Tesla owners like to test new Autopilot updates on local roads presumably because it’s a lot more impressive to watch, but the system is still currently more geared toward highway driving, which is where Tesla recommends to use it.
Here’s a great video to show the system’s performance on the highway with the current update:
We can see a great improvement especially to the auto lane change feature, which is now a lot smoother.
The test of going by off-ramps also showed impressive performance from Autopilot which didn’t get confused about taking the ramp like it sometimes would in the past.
And here are a few more good examples of improvements with the latest update for good measure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzxginubv0s
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