Elon Musk promises smoother new autopilot for Tesla cars
It's the middle of the night on a Sunday in the U.S., and of course Elon Musk is on Twitter.
This time, the Tesla CEO shared a couple of details regarding the seemingly never-ending rollout of the second version of Autopilot. According to Musk, new software will be deployed to Tesla cars "next month," and the new control algorithm will offer a much smoother ride than before.
The new software will only be deployed to owners of second-generation (HW2) Tesla cars, as the first-generation (HW1) cars don't have "enough sensors and computing power."
The relationship between the software on HW1 and HW2 Tesla cars (the latter being all that were produced since Oct. 2016) isn't always easy to understand. HW1 cars have more features than newer models, so HW2 is still catching up, but it ultimately promises to be a lot more powerful.
In late March, Tesla made a major leap toward feature parity by increasing the Autosteer speed cap to 80mph, and in May, the company increased the speed limit to 90mph. However, some users complained about the feature being quite jerky.
Musk agrees. According to him, the original control algorithm was "safe, but unpleasant." The new one is "even safer" and "super smooth."
Musk also said a couple more features, including perpendicular parking and rain sensors, will "hopefully" be coming to HW2 cars in June.
Finally, if you want to know the secret to Musk's productivity, it's very simple: The man doesn't wear underpants. Well, now you know.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
