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Tesla Autopilot 2.0 Is Coming This Year, Source Confirms (technobuffalo.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via TechnoBuffalo: A source close to Tesla Motors confirmed to TechnoBuffalo that Tesla Autopilot 2.0 is coming soon. Other media outlets like Teslarati have reported on prototype Model S and Model X vehicles operating in the wild sporting two forward facing cameras, which may indicate part of the new hardware necessary to take advantage of Autopilot 2.0's additional features. "The dual camera system is capable of recognizing and reacting to stop signs and traffic lights with no driver input," said the source. The current Autopilot software cannot simply stop itself at a light or a stop sign on its own -- it needs a car in front of it in order to automatically slow down or stop. The added cameras should help Autopilot 2.0 read and react to traffic lights and stop signs, and thus bring Tesla's cars closer to autonomous driving. The source did mention that Tesla's current test vehicles with Autopilot 2.0 are running "very beta" software that was likely the precursor to v8.0. U.S. regulators are actively investigating 25,000 Tesla Model S cars after a fatal crash involving a vehicle using the "Autopilot" mode was reported. Despite the tragedy, Elon Musk recently said that Autopilot could save half a million lives every year if Tesla Autopilot was universally available.
OK, I probably should have checked the reference before releasing the hounds. If this is to be believed then Musk was simply speculating on such a possibility and actually advocating for a right to manual control. If their quotes are accurate, then I must stand corrected. Ahh, the perils of Slashdot, which lacks reddit's delete button. My errors are all there for posterity, not the first time and probably not the last.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Reading the signs is not particularly complex. My BMW i3 reads the speed limit signs and duplicates them on the dashboard.