All Telsa cars produced from now on will have full self-driving capabilities, even if the functionality is not enabled.
The company states that full autonomy will enable a Tesla to be substantially safer than a human driver, lower the financial cost of transportation for those who own a car and provide low-cost on-demand mobility for those who do not.
“We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver,” the states.
Eight surround cameras provide 360 degree visibility around the car at up to 250m of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system.
A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength, capable of seeing through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead.
To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software.
ogether, this system provides a view of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction simultaneously and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses, according to Tesla.
Model S and Model X vehicles with this new hardware are already in production.
Before the features are full enabled, Tesla will collect data from real-world driving before calibrating the system.
