Tesla's latest Autopilot update warns drivers about red lights
Red light!
The Tesla electric car community is talking about an Autopilot over-the-air update version 2019.8.3 that showed up on Saturday. Now the semi-autonomous system can warn drivers about traffic lights.
The Autosteer feature, which uses cameras and sensors to keep the car in its lane and navigate tight turns, can now alert drivers about an upcoming red light. If the car is about to run the light, the new system will alert the driver.
Called "Autosteer Stop Light Warning," the update gives drivers using Autopilot a visual and audio warning that they need to take over.
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It's a simple update within the complicated Autopilot ecosystem, which includes the highway-only Navigate on Autopilot feature that suggests passing slower cars and switching lanes. It's as autonomous as the cars can get with the driver still required to pay attention and be ready at the wheel.
The new stop light update on Tesla cars also includes the warning that, "This is not a substitute for an attentive driver and will not stop the car." You still need to snap to attention and stop the car yourself if a red light appears.
As electric car news outlet Electrek pointed out, Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at the traffic light warning months ago.
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Even if the red light warning finally made it to the Tesla software, that drive from home to work with "no driver input at all" promise is still in the works.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
