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Tesla Updates Autopilot To Make It Follow the Speed Limit On Roads (electrek.co)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Before a recent update that is being gradually pushed to Tesla owners, the automaker allowed its Autopilot to be set at a higher speed than the speed limit on all roads where the driver assist system could be enabled, but now Tesla is pushing a new update to make Autopilot follow the rules of the road more closely. Owners of Tesla vehicles equipped with Autopilot have, up until now, been able to set the speed of the Autopilot's 'Traffic-Aware Cruise Control' feature to up to 5 mph over the speed limit on roads and non-divided highways. Now they are restricted to following the speed limit exactly, without the 5 mph leeway. On highways, the speed limit doesn't have a direct effect on the Autopilot's speed. The speed is still limited by the Autopilot's overall 90 mph speed limit. Every time Tesla introduces new restrictions to its Autopilot system, it gets a mixed response from owners. While the new restrictions are often coming from the aspiration of making the system safer, some owners always see them as taking away capabilities that they already had and had paid for. With the introduction of the software update v8.0 in September, Tesla introduced a more aggressive "Autopilot nag," which prompts more 'Hold Steering Wheel' alerts.
Each update must be acknowledged and scheduled for installation by the user, although theoretically there might be a backdoor way for them to remotely install updates without user consent. If you ever go a Tesla Service Center you'll need to remember to tell them not to install software updates for you (since they will commonly do that as a courtesy).
However, there will also be a point where features in the older software versions may no longer be supported and capabilities may degrade, particularly if Tesla's server-side communications specific to those older versions are discontinued, particularly around the navigation features. The Tesla Service Center may also say that they are logistically unable to fix or support some issues without upgrading to a current version.
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I can imagine they are few. The Autopilot works best on motorways and if the autopilot can be set to a max 5mph over the speed limit a cop or speed camera won't give it a second glance. It's also better at not tailgating and does a pretty damn good job of not driving dangerously from my admittedly limited experience.