Tesla rolled out the first iteration of its Enhanced Autopilot on Model X crossovers and Model S sedans equipped with the Autopilot 2.0 hardware almost a week ago. The owners who received the Enhanced Autopilot update reported little functionality of it initially while their vehicles awaited calibration. The over-the-air software update was offered to about 1,000 cars, says Teslarati.
Autopilot 8.0 features improving
The Autopilot 8.0 (2.50.185) update includes the Forward Collision Warning, Low-Speed Autosteer (in Beta) and Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC). The Model X and Model S cars produced after October 18 have a 360-degree view aided by data collected through a suite of 12 advanced ultrasonic sensors and eight cameras.
Gary, a Model S60 owner, told Teslarati that the features started to gradually appear as the number of miles driven under the new software ramped up.
“I could tell the vehicle was calibrating because a yellow error message would appear informing me that my cameras were still calibrating whenever I tried to engage the traffic aware cruise control. After driving only 20 miles total in 3 trips, the cruise control feature started to work.”
Even though the car’s Traffic-Aware Cruise Control feature started to work shortly after the software update, Autosteer (now known as Low-Speed Autosteer), the main feature of Autopilot, was not functional.
Gary started seeing the early stages of Autosteer operate after a few days when more driving miles logged. Gary posted a video as well, showing the first signs of Tesla’s Low-Speed Autosteer feature starting to work and Enhanced Autopilot’s TACC in action. You can see more pictures of v8.0 (2.50.185) on Gary’s website.
What about the Tesla Model 3?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was at the Gigafactory recently for an investor event. According to reports, Musk discussed progress made at the battery plant and confirmed that the automaker is planning to add more battery pack manufacturing to the plant.
Musk also hinted at upcoming announcements about the Model 3 during the event. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said that though the CEO declined to answer questions about the Model 3, he hinted at new announcements when pressed about the affordable electric car.
According to Jonas, Musk said, “Let’s keep our Model 3 powder dry on announcements.”
Previously, the CEO mentioned that the automaker aims to hold another unveiling event (the Part 3) for the car during the first quarter.
On Thursday, Tesla shares closed down 0.11% at $226.75.
