Tesla has started pushing a new software update to its fleet this week and owners testing it are reporting significant improvements to the Autopilot system – something that the automaker has been promising for a while now.
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We recently reported that Tesla started beta-testing a new Autopilot update with new features and a more advanced neural net.
Sources said that the update represented a significant improvement on the system and while it still doesn’t feature the long-promised features of Enhanced Autopilot, the more advanced neural net could serve as a strong basis to deploy those features.
Now, Tesla started pushing an update (2018.10.4) which officially only features “minor fixes and improvements” and the ability to open the trunks of Tesla vehicles with the mobile app, as we reported last week.
But as we know, these “minor fixes and improvements” often feature Autopilot improvements and this one is apparently an important one.
It doesn’t detect and render on the instrument cluster vehicles driving in lanes adjacent to the lane in which the Tesla vehicle is driving like it did in the first beta build, but it does feature the same improvements to Autopilot performance with the updated neural net.
Autopilot 2.0/2.5 drivers 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.
Some are also reporting a more efficient Traffic-Aware Cruise Control to slow down and stop when locked into a lead vehicle – like the image above.
Electrek’s Take
Last month, Elon Musk said that a new Tesla Autopilot update is “in the final testing phase.”
He added that “early access build and especially Dev build are feature-rich, but the features aren’t reliable enough yet.”
So this new update is definitely not “feature rich”, but the backend has clearly been significantly updated to improve the performance of the current features.
Depending on who you talk to, Autopilot 1 is still better in some highway driving situations than the current release of Autopilot 2.
I think most people will agree that it is not the case anymore with this new update.
We should have a video demonstration of the new update soon and have a better idea then. The update is still being pushed to the fleet so not every owner has it yet, but it’s spreading quickly.
Let us know if you have a good video demonstration – contact information below.