Tesla has announced that all new cars it builds from now on will have the autonomous hardware needed to allow them to drive completely on their own.
Models which Tesla are already building, including the Model S and Model X, as well as the upcoming Model 3, will all receive the necessary hardware which includes cameras, ultrasound sensors and radar.
In a statement, Tesla said: “To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software.
“Together, this system provides a view of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction simultaneously and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses.”
Fully autonomous tech will need unlocking
Those who purchase a new Tesla with the new hardware will need to activate the software to actually access the fully autonomous driving features. This software can either be added when ordering the car, or it can be paid for at a later time.
The new hardware and software does still need to undergo all the tests required to meet Tesla’s own high standards, and get government approval too. Tesla cars with older autonomous hardware will continue to be updated but will not be capable of achieving full autonomy.
Tesla has not set a concrete release date for when cars with the new, fully autonomous tech will arrive, as they want to be sure they have gathered sufficient data. It has been revealed though that the company plans to have cars capable of autonomously driving owners all the way from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017.
