Tesla self-driving

Tesla has released new self-driving demo video based on its latest software working on its new Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer.
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Today, Tesla updated its language regarding Autopilot and self-driving capability on its website – walking back some previously announced features and further confusing some owners.
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Over the past few months, Elon Musk has been saying that Tesla is aiming to release its self-driving system by the end of 2019, but now the CEO adds that it will require driver oversight.
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Ever since Tesla released its second generation Autopilot hardware and started offering an option called “full self-driving capability”, there’s been some confusion about Tesla’s plan for rolling out fully autonomous driving.

CEO Elon Musk has clarified the plans this week and now predicts that true level 5 autonomy is about 2 years away – though Tesla should still have advanced autonomous driving systems before that.
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Tesla ran into troubles with some regulators and consumer watchdog groups this year over the use of the word ‘Autopilot’ to describe its advanced driver assist system. They expressed concerns that users would think it could mean the vehicles are autonomous. Tesla managed to successfully defend its position so far and always reiterated that the ‘Autopilot’ is named after the system used in aircraft and it doesn’t make them autonomous.

Now it seems Tesla is already having troubles with its new “full self-driving capability” feature which is not available yet, but Tesla is currently selling it anyway.
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Yesterday, Tesla released two very interesting videos of the latest version of its self-driving technology on the new Autopilot 2.0 hardware. While they are fascinating to watch, they were both sped up. I think it’s worth revisiting the test with the video slowed down to real-time in order to really appreciate the level of autonomy Tesla achieved so far.
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Late Friday night, Tesla released a second video demonstration of its new self-driving platform and this time, it included real-time feeds of what ‘Tesla Vision’, the automaker’s end-to-end image processing system, can see from the cameras.
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NVIDIA reported its financial results for the last quarter yesterday and surprised Wall Street. The chip maker, which is now becoming an “AI company” according to its leadership, reported revenue of $2 billion on expectations of $1.7 billion and they also surpassed earnings expectations by a similar margin.

On a conference call with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang following the results, analysts were particularly interested in the company’s push in AI and the automotive industry, especially since Tesla’s started delivering every single one of its vehicles with NVIDIA’s Drive PX2 supercomputer.

Huang offered some very interesting insights into how he sees Tesla’s self-driving program playing out.
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Tesla Model S and X vehicles with the new Autopilot and self-driving capable hardware, also known as ‘Hardware 2’ or ‘HW2’, are starting to roll off the assembly line in Fremont since Tesla’s announcement last month. Now vehicles are being spotted with the new hardware suite in the wild.

Consequently, it gives us our first look at the new sensors outside of Tesla’s press content.
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As we reported last month, Tesla’s plans to bring self-driving cars to market without using LiDAR sensors are raising a few eyebrows. That’s because we have been told for years now by most people in the industry that it wasn’t achievable, but the company moved forward with its plans in a big way last month when it started producing all cars with a self-driving-ready hardware suite without LiDAR.

The Drive is now confusing quite a few people about Tesla’s strategy by claiming that the automaker is actually planning to use LiDAR in a new article titled: “Despite Public Stance, Musk Secretly Plans to Use LiDAR in Future Tesla Models: Ignore Musk’s tweets and what he’s said in earnings calls, a Tesla equipped with LiDAR is in the works.” (Update: the Drive has since changed its headline to nuance the claim)

But it’s actually not the case. Here’s why:
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The announcement that Tesla is now equipping every car coming off its assembly line with what the automaker believes to be the necessary hardware to enable full self-driving capability has been met with skepticism among industry watchers and left the market mostly unimpressed.

Tesla’s stock price fell by 2% after the announcement, which indicates that the market either has doubts about Tesla achieving level 5 full autonomy with the new hardware or it doesn’t understand the implications of having full autonomous capabilities. The latter is unlikely considering the value of self-driving technology for automakers has been mostly understood for the past few years now.

The former is more likely the case here since we have been told that lidar sensors are required for full autonomy and redundancy ever since self-driving vehicle development has become mainstream in the industry, and Tesla is almost famously not using the laser-based sensor.
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Tesla released a video demonstration of a Model X equipped with its latest self-driving sensor suite, which is going into Tesla’s vehicles right now, and using the most advanced version of the software, which will be pushed to owners gradually throughout the coming year.
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As part of the reveal of his ‘Master Plan Part 2’, CEO Elon Musk elaborated on the automaker’s plan for the role of car ownership and ride-sharing in the future of the company.

Musk confirmed that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and it is approved by regulators (2 to 3 years based on his previous statements), the automaker plans for Tesla owners to be able to loan their car to a ‘shared autonomous fleet’ and make money while they are not using it.
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The first reported death in a Tesla Model S crash while the Autopilot was activated has been shaking the Tesla and self-driving car community since yesterday. The tragic accident happened May 7th in Florida, but we only learned about it yesterday when Tesla revealed that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched preliminary evaluation in Tesla’s Autopilot system.

We don’t pretend to know everything about the accident, but based on the information released by the Florida Highway Patrol, Tesla and NHTSA, we try to convey our best understanding of the events and the possible impact of the regulator’s probe on the Autopilot.
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A new report published today by Israel’s Globes suggests that Elon Musk visited Israel-based tech firm Mobileye to test a new system for the next generation Tesla Autopilot.

According to Globes, Musk visited Mobileye’s Israel operations earlier this month for a “demonstration of several breakthrough developments by Mobileye in [automated driving technology] installed on a trial Tesla Model S vehicle.”

The report suggests that Mobileye is testing its automated driving technology in two Tesla Model S test vehicles. Independently, a Model S being tested with a fully-autonomous hardware suite was recently spotted in California.
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Developments in autonomous driving technology are creating tons of opportunities for engineers with expertise in computer vision, machine learning, robotics and other related fields. Almost all car manufacturer and several huge tech companies are scrambling to advance the technology. Some companies are further along than others and besides traditional automakers, Google, Apple, Bosch, Uber and others have been building important teams of engineers and researchers for their own efforts in developing the technology.

Tesla is another leader in the field and it has made it a priority to acquire talent for its own effort in the sector called the ‘Autopilot’ team. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even took to Twitter to encourage engineers to join the team. It’s undoubtedly a good use of his large Twitter following (3.4 million followers), but certainly an unconventional way to ask for resumes.

The automaker managed to assemble an impressive team to develop the next generation Autopilot, which aims to eventually allow fully autonomous driving, but not without a few bumps along the way. Today we take a look at the team and its refresh “exodus” of talent that took place around the release of the v7.0 of the feature.
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