Fare thee well, dear Autopilot, for you are being shown the door, although you?re not being ushered through it quite yet. Starting today, all Tesla vehicles will feature hardware to enable what Tesla is now referring to as ?self-driving capability,? with Tesla CEO Elon Musk adding that Autopilot “does not represent self-driving any more than autopilot in an aircraft makes it self-flying,? which could be a veiled retort to German regulators. A comprehensive upgrade of the camera, sensor, and computing suites allows for two flavors of the system, which Tesla is referring to as Hardware 2. And the company looks to be eyeing a reverse Cannonball as a way to prove the new system?s worth.
The lower-tier system basically will enable the car to navigate freeways without driver input, which Musk referred to as ?enhanced Autopilot.? The full-boat system also will be capable of navigating urban environments. Hardware 2 features either four or eight cameras as well as a sonar system that doubles the range. The eight-camera system consists of three forward-facing cameras ahead of the rearview mirror, two mounted in the B-pillars, two side-rear units in the turn-signal repeaters, and a rear-facing lens above the license plate. The larger volume of information is processed via a computer capable of 12 trillion operations per second, which Musk calls ?basically a supercomputer in a car.? To start, however, the cars won?t be quite as capable as Hardware 1 vehicles. For the first ...