Tesla as promised earlier managed to roll out Autopilot 2.0 in 2016.
They have pushed their price increase plans to a later date and the free supercharging offer will continue for some more time.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla industries announced two weeks ago that they will roll out Autopilot 2.0 features on December 31st, 2016. Rolling out an update on the last day of the year doesn’t count as being on time. However, it is an achievement for the brand that is known for delayed production and car deliveries owing to technical difficulties. The rollout of the autopilot mode was too limited as it was introduced in just 1000 cars as an over-the-air update.
The limited rollout is to ensure that the software update doesn’t cause any performance or on-road issues. Once the team is sure that it is safe to bring it out, the update will be made available on all cars. The new Autopilot 2.0 is for both Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles. Dubbed as hardware 2 versions, the software enhances the capacity of the sensors, upgrades its overall situational awareness and enhances its autopilot capabilities so that the cars can become fully autonomous in the future.
The idea can be achieved with HW2 vehicles while HW1 vehicles can only witness slight upgrades to improve their performance. The parity in the availability of these cars and the inferior components used in the previous generation vehicles stop the brand from moving forward. Those who invested more in HW2 are left with older software versions, which is something the company should look into immediately.
Meanwhile, an announcement confirmed that the free supercharging offer. The offer has convinced a lot of buyers to go for Model S cars. While there were plans to limit the charging to 400 kWh which would allow a maximum of 1,000 miles of travel, it has been postponed for the time being and people can charge their vehicles for free until further announcement is made. Tesla also planned to increase the price of multiple variants of Model S and Model X cars in the UK on 1st January, 2017. However, it has been postponed by two weeks to 15th January. The price increase is because of currency fluctuations caused by Brexit and the cars may cost five percent more than the current price tag.The bumpy road continues for Tesla, both with their cars and software updates but they continue to go against the tide to make electric, autonomous vehicles the norm.
The bumpy road continues for Tesla, both with their cars and software updates but they continue to go against the tide to make electric, autonomous vehicles the norm.