Watch Tesla’s new Driving Visualization with zoom-in and rotate

Tesla has released a much bigger update to its “Driving Visualization,” the real-time rendering of the vehicle’s surroundings, than we thought.

A new demo now shows that you can zoom in and rotate the 3D render.

Yesterday, we reported on a Model 3 owner in Tesla’s early access program showing a new animation in the driving visualization when making an auto lane change.

But the owner buried the lead, as we now learned that there is a lot more to Tesla’s updated driving visualization in the early access update.

The same Tesla Model 3 owner, going by “Tesla Life of Deenchik” on Twitter, sent us a new demo video that shows Tesla added the ability to zoom in and out of the render and even rotate to have a different viewpoint on your vehicle’s surroundings:

Under the new software update 2019.28.3.7, which again is currently only for Tesla owners in the early access program, it appears that owners can explore a 3D look of their surroundings with the new driving visualization while driving.

The use cases for this new feature are unclear, since even when driving on Autopilot, Tesla owners have to stay attentive and be ready to take control at all time.

Tesla Life of Deenchik told Electrek that it could be useful while parking. 

Many vehicles now have a 360-degree view while parking, and while Tesla’s vehicles are equipped with a rearview camera and ultrasonic sensors that tell the driver the distances between the car and objects around it while parking, the automaker never offered that specific feature.

This new driving visualization feature could offer something similar.

Electrek’s Take

I could indeed see this develop into something useful, but as it stands right now, I don’t see much use to it.

However, as I stated yesterday,  the driving visualization is kind of what Autopilot sees, so therefore, it is a confidence builder.

As Tesla moves toward self-driving, the feature is going to be useful to show the driver (who will eventually be a passenger) what the Autopilot is thinking, which should build confidence in the system.

But yesterday I also mentioned some issues with the system, specifically the bug with cars frantically moving around when stopped or at low speed.

It will hard to build confidence until those bugs are fixed.