Tesla: Autopilot will be upgraded to "full self-driving" in August this year

In the global automotive industry, California Tesla is the most active company in commercial autonomous driving technology, but in terms of driverless technology, Tesla lags behind other leading companies, which has also caused some criticism. According to the latest news from foreign media, Tesla CEO Musk recently announced that in August, Tesla's electric car's autonomous driving technology will be upgraded to the "full autonomous driving" level, and the technical capabilities will be greatly improved.

According to the American technology news website Engadget, on June 10, Musk posted on Twitter that in August, Tesla's autopilot system Autopilot will be upgraded to version 9.0. Starting from this version, "we will achieve fully autonomous driving."

Tesla also emphasized that Autopilot's research and development department has invested a lot of resources in vehicle driving safety.

As we all know, autonomous driving technology is divided into multiple levels. According to the SAE classification, the highest level five is "fully autonomous driving". At this level, the vehicle can complete the operation of controlling the car in any weather. Human drivers do not need to pay any attention to the road or the vehicle. They can even "sleep" while the vehicle is driving.

It is currently impossible to confirm whether the "full self-driving" mentioned by Musk on Twitter is the same concept as the "full self-driving" strictly defined by the industry.

According to reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and third-party market research companies, some industry-leading companies such as Waymo have already achieved Level 4 highly automated driving or Level 5 fully automated driving, but the vast majority of research and development companies have not yet achieved fully automated driving.

Third-party reports show that compared with Waymo, General Motors, Nissan and other companies, the autonomous driving technology of well-known companies such as Tesla, Uber, and Apple is still lagging behind.

Over the past few years, Tesla has deployed autonomous driving technology directly into electric vehicles and can launch new features through subsequent software upgrades. However, the industry generally believes that Tesla's autonomous driving technology is only at a low level of assisted driving and is a long way from fully unmanned driving.

Foreign media speculated that although Musk mentioned the concept of "full autonomous driving", the new version of Autopilot is unlikely to allow users to completely leave the steering wheel and complete long-distance driving from the east coast to the west coast of the United States.

Foreign media said that perhaps in some specific scenarios (such as private enclosed venues or parking lots), Tesla owners can allow the automatic driving system to perform more control functions.

Tesla and Musk have been criticized for being too hasty in commercializing autonomous driving technology, pushing it to the market for commercial purposes when safety was not yet mature. In addition, the media and industry insiders have also pointed out that Tesla's "Autopilot" misled consumers. This naming led some car owners to mistakenly believe that electric cars can have autonomous driving functions. Some car owners even left the steering wheel and uploaded videos to YouTube, which even caused some tragedies.

In the past two or three years, Tesla's electric vehicles have been involved in several accidents, some of which were related to the vehicle's automatic driving function.

In March this year, a Tesla electric car driven by a Chinese employee of Apple was involved in a tragic car accident, resulting in death. The US government recently released a preliminary investigation report, showing that when the car accident occurred, the vehicle was in automatic driving mode and the driver left the steering wheel several times. The report pointed out that Tesla was also responsible for the accident.

Tesla's fatal car accident also brought the company under great public pressure. Tesla has launched some adjustment measures, such as abandoning some "unqualified" suppliers and developing some important chips and algorithms on its own. In addition, Tesla has also made major upgrades to the hardware of the autopilot system, with an increase in the number of sensors, cameras, radars and other equipment compared to the past.

However, when it comes to upgrading the autonomous driving system, older models that have already been sold cannot have autonomous driving hardware added, and can only have their software systems upgraded.

In April, Musk talked about the autopilot function and car accidents in an interview with the media. He said that the company's Autopilot is still not perfect, but compared with human driving, the probability of accidents and casualties will be reduced tenfold.

As for the commercial use of autonomous driving technology by other companies, Google's sister company Waymo plans to launch a driverless taxi service in Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, in the second half of the year. Waymo has ordered 80,000 driverless cars for this service (suppliers are Jaguar Land Rover and Fiat Chrysler), and has also obtained a taxi operating license.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.