autopilot
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Tesla sues ex-Autopilot chief for stealing company secrets
Tesla is suing its former Autopilot director, claiming he took confidential, proprietary information about its self-driving technology and destroyed evidence to cover his tracks, according to a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara Superior Court. It alleges Sterling Anderson also attempted to recruit at least a dozen employees, in violation of his contract, all in an attempt to create a competing autonomous vehicle startup called "Aurora." Also named in the suit is Google's former self-driving director Chris Urmson, Anderson's partner in the venture.
Tesla's big Autopilot update is now active on newer cars
Tesla's Enhanced Autopilot has been months in the making, but it's finally here -- no, for real this time. After days of laying dormant, the upgrade is now active for all HW2-era (that is, self-driving capable) Model S and Model X vehicles with Autopilot enabled. You may need to have Tesla technicians modify your camera angles first (the car will tell you if this is the case), but you're otherwise golden. Provided it works as promised, it should give you a more sophisticated take on semi-autonomy.
Investigation clears Tesla for fatal Autopilot crash
Last May a Tesla Model S ran into a tractor trailer in Florida while in Autopilot mode. The collision resulted in the death of the driver Joshua Brown and prompted an investigation by the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). Today that government agency concluded its investigation and found no defects with the vehicle's Autopilot or Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) features.
Autopilot update rolls out to all Teslas with HW2 hardware
Tesla's Enhanced Autopilot update has rolled out to all its HW2 vehicles, company chief Elon Musk has announced on Twitter. HW2 is what the automaker calls its second-generation self-driving hardware found in its newer models, including the Model S and X. The Enhanced Autopilot update was designed to bring several autonomous features to the new hardware, such as autosteer, smart summon, autopark and auto lane change. Some of those features were available on the first-gen hardware, but Tesla had to deactivate them for HW2 until they've undergone more testing. Unfortunately, it might still take some time before you can try the reactivated features unless you're one of the 1,000 testers who had early access to them.
Tesla hires the creator of Apple's Swift programming language
The fight between Apple and Tesla over engineering talent appears to be ongoing, with today's announcement that Chris Lattner is leaving Apple to join Tesla. Lattner was the Senior Director and Architect at Apple, where he created the open-source Swift programming language. Beyond his work on Swift, which Apple introduced during its WWDC 2014 event, Lattner is also the author of LLVM. At Tesla, he will be leading the Autopilot team that continues to develop its driver assistance and self-driving technology.
Tesla's superfast P100D offers tech-heavy luxury for the rich
When you drive the $134,000 Tesla Model S P100D, you want to tell the world that it goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds. You're like a child excited about a new toy, stopping strangers on the streets to regale them with your tales of wonder. But to many, that staggeringly quick acceleration has little to no meaning. They have no personal barometer to judge it against. They really have to experience it.
Tesla's big Autopilot update reaches a handful of cars
Tesla didn't roll out its Enhanced Autopilot in mid-December as initially reported, but it is giving drivers something right before 2016 comes to a close. Elon Musk has revealed that the new Autopilot software is reaching about 1,000 HW2-era (that is, October and beyond) cars, with the rest of the HW2 fleet getting it the following week if there are no problems. The P100D performance update should hit on January 5th, too, so you'll have an extra treat if you splurged on a recent Model S or X.
Tesla Autopilot avoids a crash before it happens
Tesla's Autopilot 8.0 has a particularly clever feature: it uses radar to track road activity two cars ahead, helping it avoid danger that you wouldn't normally see. And it now appears that this tech just averted a disaster. Dutch Model X owner Frank van Hoesel has dashcam footage showing his electric crossover reacting to a bad highway crash before it even starts. As you can hear in the video, the Model X's Forward Collision Warning system starts braking when it detects the SUV two vehicles ahead coming to an abrupt stop, even though the driver of the car directly behind it is unaware. The result? Van Hoesel's EV remained untouched when it could easily have contributed to a pile-up.
Elon Musk: Tesla's upgraded Autopilot could roll out next week
Elon Musk told a Model S owner in late November that the Enhanced Autopilot update should roll out sometime in mid-December. Now, the Tesla chief has confirmed the company's timeline on Twitter. He announced that the automaker "might be ready to to roll out most of Autopilot functionality" for its latest self-driving hardware (HW2) by the end of next week.
Tesla's Autopilot will now stick to the speed limit
Autopilot-enabled Teslas are about to become slightly more conservative drivers. The company's latest software update will match the top speed to the posted speed limit when the vehicle's Autosteer function is engaged, TechCrunch reports today. In the previous version, Autopilot was allowed to speed by about five mph on undivided highways, but the new cap won't apply on freeways where the system is limited to 90 mph.
Facebook's internet drone crash-landed because it was windy
Facebook celebrated the first full test flight of its solar-powered internet drone, Aquila, in July, but things didn't go as smoothly as they could have. The drone completed a 96-minute flight in Yuma, Arizona, but it ended up crash-landing because of a structural failure in the right wing, according to today's report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB announced in November that it would investigate the accident.
Tesla's upgraded Autopilot will start rolling out mid-December
Should you happen to be one of the first drivers to buy a Model S or Model X with Enhanced Autopilot support, you're probably wondering when you'll actually start getting those features. Well, the mystery's over. Elon Musk informs a new Model S owner that the Enhanced Autopilot update should start rolling out in "about three weeks" (as of November 26th), or sometime in mid-December. That's a nice holiday gift, we'd say. However, don't expect to receive everything that Tesla promised right off the bat.
Tesla self-driving demo shows you what the car sees
Sure, Tesla's first demo of full self-driving features was intriguing. But did you wonder what it was like from the car's point of view? You're about to find out. Tesla has posted another demo video that shows what an autonomous EV sees as it navigates local roads. As the clip illustrates, the cameras and sensors have to detect many, many different objects at any given moment: road lines, signs, lights, pedestrians and cars are among the many examples. The car even captures the "motion flow" of the environment to get a sense of where it's going.
Ford's next-gen driver assist will swerve before you do
The trickle-down benefits of Ford's autonomous driving technology are making their way into more and more consumer vehicles. While Tesla might get all the headlines with Autopilot, Ford has been quietly rolling out smart, driver-assist features across more of its vehicles than any other manufacturer. Today, the automaker announced a new generation of technologies like evasive steering assist, cross-traffic alerts, pedestrian detection and enhanced self-parking that should make driving a little less stressful and a lot safer for everyone.
Geohot cancels his self-driving add-on amid legal scrutiny
George "Geohot" Hotz, PlayStation and iPhone hacker extraordinaire, has canceled production on Comma One, a $1,000 aftermarket add-on that he said would allow some cars to operate semi-autonomously. He claimed the tech was "about on par" with Tesla's Autopilot and it used cars' video feeds to navigate the roads. It was due to start rolling out at the end of this year. But, after receiving a special order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today, Geohot decided Comma One wasn't worth the paperwork.
ICYMI: Bot is my co-pilot
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: DARPA's autopilot system for military planes is being tested, this time in a Cessna Caravan turboprop plane. It's made up of a robotic arm and tablet with speech recognition, so communicating with the mechanical brain is supposed to be even easier. Meanwhile, ping-pong fans will want to know about new paddles that set the music based on the pace of the rally. A new product designed for gamers with haptic actuators is here, while just for kicks, the Price is Right celebration is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Tesla brings self-driving hardware to its entire fleet
If you're wondering if the Model 3 will be ready for our eventual autonomous future, wonder no more. Tesla announced that beginning today, all the cars it builds will have the necessary hardware to drive completely on their own if the owner decides they want to enable the option. The full self-driving hardware suite will cost an additional $8,000.
Watch DARPA's autopilot system fly a turboprop plane
It'll likely take a long time before DARPA's autopilot system flies military planes on its own, but this latest demonstration proves that it works. Aurora Flight Sciences, the aviation company that's developing the technology for the agency, has successfully tested it on a Cessna Caravan turboprop aircraft. Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System or ALIAS is comprised of a robotic arm and a tablet-based user interface with speech recognition, among other components. When installed on a plane, it acts as the co-pilot in charge of flying the aircraft -- its human companions can chill and spend their time keeping an eye on the weather or looking out for any potential threats.
Tesla moves its 'unexpected' product unveiling to Wednesday
Tesla was set to reveal an "unexpected" product today, but you'll have to wait a few more days to find out what it is. In a tweet early this morning, CEO Elon Musk said that the announcement has been postponed until Wednesday (October 19th), because it "needs a few more days of refinement." It's still not clear exactly what Tesla is announcing; speculation has ranged from the Model 3's final design, to a new PowerWall model to an updated version of the Autopilot.
German officials: Tesla shouldn't say 'Autopilot' in its ads
Just days ago, Germany's Federal Motor Authority sent letters to Tesla owners warning them that their cars' "Autopilot" feature is strictly there for driver assistance, not driver replacement. As it turns out, those letters were just the opening salvo. According to a report from Reuters, the German government is asking Tesla to stop using the term "autopilot" in its advertising entirely out of concerns that people misinterpret its purpose.
