A Tesla owner on the early access program got the brand new Tesla V10 update and released an illustration of his 40-minute commute on three freeways in Los Angeles, which was achieved without driver intervention.
There are some Autopilot-specific features coming with Tesla V10, like Smart Summon and recent Driving Visualization, but CEO Elon Musk has also been promising some general improvements to the Autopilot’s neural net, and owners should see higher general Autopilot performance.
A Model 3 owner in Los Angeles got the early beta release of Tesla V10 and used Navigate on Autopilot on his commute with the brand new release.
He wrote about it:
Today, I achieved in my mind Level 3 autonomy. I used to be capable of get through an on-ramp, three freeways, auto lane changes, HOV to HOV, and exit the off-ramp at my destination. On this journey, the steering wheel, gas pedal, and signal stalk was not touched once! There was a single moment that I needed disengage NOA in order that it could maintain the lane on the 110 HOV. That can be an interesting bookmark in your Autopilot’s team neuro network decision logs. The present state of the autopilot, FSD, Autolane change is making my commute SUPERBLY nice to endure! =) Many thanks again Tesla!
Here’s the video of his entire commute with some interesting moments (1:50 auto merging on highway — 20:40 HOV to HOV interchange — and a ton of auto lane changes):
https://youtu.be/aDGgdGMOT78
As you’ll be able to see, the driving force is using a weight on the steering wheel to trick Tesla’s system into pondering that he’s applying pressure to the wheel.
This allows him to avoid getting “apply torque the steering wheel” alerts and keep his hands off the steering wheel.
We don’t recommend doing this. Tesla says to all the time keep your hands on the steering wheel and all the time be able to take control at any time when using Autopilot.
There are also questions on the legality of using such a tool to defeat the warning systems. NHTSA shut down a product designed to do this, they usually needed to relaunch it as a “phone mount”.
Nonetheless, it is beneficial to display the capability of Autopilot without driver intervention. It doesn’t actually affect Autopilot’s decision-making and as an alternative, it more clearly shows that there’s no driver intervention.
Tesla V10 is speculated to get a push to a wider release in the approaching weeks.
Electrek’s Take
That is surely a powerful improvement. There are some really good auto lane changes without confirmation in there and with somewhat heavy traffic.
Autopilot also handled the interchanges fairly well.
Nonetheless, I’d watch out calling this “level 3” autonomous driving just yet. There’s some debate on the interpretation of level 3, however it is mostly accepted that it’s a very autonomous system with the driving force as a backup, able to take control inside an inexpensive time if asked to achieve this by the system.
If not asked, then the driving force doesn’t really must be being attentive.
Subsequently, so long as the system asks the driving force to listen, like it’s the case with Autopilot (for those who don’t have a weight on the wheel), it could’t really be considered a level 3 autonomous system.
Tesla would need to be OK with removing a variety of the Autopilot nag and telling drivers that they don’t need to listen unless asked to.
We are usually not quite there yet, but we’re seeing some encouraging improvements.