Latest Tesla Update Lets You Summon Your Car From Wherever You Are
Also refines self-driving and auto-parking features.
Tesla Motors released software update version 7.1 (v7.1) today and followed up with a conference call during which co-founder and CEO Elon Musk made several bold predictions about the future of autonomous driving.
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"I actually think, and I might be slightly optimistic on this, but I think that within two years, you'll be able to summon your car from across the country," said Musk shortly after the call began, referencing Summon, one of the most significant new features included in update v7.1.
Summon is the latest addition to the Tesla's Autopark feature, and allows owners to park and retrieve their vehicles via coded keypresses on the key fob, and eventually, says Elon, via your smartphone -- even if you're across the country.
"If you're, let's say, in New York, and your car is in Los Angeles, it will find its way to you and meet you wherever your phone is. So the phone will just communicate with the car and tell the car where to find you. And it will just automatically charge itself along the whole journey."
In addition to Summon, which is "in Beta" (that is, not fully complete), update v7.1 adds parallel parking and reverse parking (backing into a space) to the Autopilot system, along with improvements to HomeLink (garage door opening system) and the vehicles' auto-locking system. With v7.1 installed, owners can exit their Tesla while it's still in the driveway, push two buttons on the keyfob, and the vehicle will open the garage door, park and lock itself, before closing the garage door.
Less flashy, but more important, are the safety refinements v7.1 brings to Tesla's Autopilot self-driving system. When approaching and driving through corners, Autopilot will now slow the vehicle down instead of maintaining a steady speed, which is a logical and obvious safety enhancement.
"The changes to autopilot are mainly sensible restrictions, though slowing for approaching corners is cool," saysMotor Trendtesting director Kim Reynods. "It's been talked about a lot in tech previews but this is a real-world application. [Elon] seems very comfortable with Beta testing in the public domain -- engineers with other car companies usually express horror at the idea."
Speed restrictions have been added to the Autosteer component of Autopilot as well; on residential roads and roads without a center divider, Model S speeds will be automatically limited to the posted speed limit plus 5 mph, even if the user has set the speed higher via cruise control. Tesla claims Autosteer's performance has been improved when lane markings are faded and when passing highway exits. During our testing of Tesla's Autopilot system, we noted a few instances when Autosteer took offramps unexpectedly so this is a welcome addition.
For what it's worth, Elon is bullish on what update v7.1 means for the future of autonomous driving.
"I think at this point, with 7.1 and with the enhanced street learning that comes from 7.1, we will have to see what the statistics say, but I believe that it's probably better than human at this point, in highway driving. Or certainly will be as street learning gets more and more sophisticated. That's been my observation when I've been testing the car; it's certainly better at staying in the center of the lane than compared to other cars on the road. I think that is quite exciting. If it isn't quite better than human yet, it certainly will be in the coming months," said Musk near the conclusion of the call.
I used to go kick tires with my dad at local car dealerships. I was the kid quizzing the sales guys on horsepower and 0-60 times, while Dad wandered around undisturbed. When the salesmen finally cornered him, I'd grab as much of the glossy product literature as I could carry. One that still stands out to this day: the beautiful booklet on the Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX that favorably compared it to the Porsches of the era. I would pore over the prose, pictures, specs, trim levels, even the fine print, never once thinking that I might someday be responsible for the asterisked figures "*as tested by Motor Trend magazine." My parents, immigrants from Hong Kong, worked their way from St. Louis, Missouri (where I was born) to sunny Camarillo, California, in the early 1970s. Along the way, Dad managed to get us into some interesting, iconic family vehicles, including a 1973 Super Beetle (first year of the curved windshield!), 1976 Volvo 240, the 1977 Chevrolet Caprice Classic station wagon, and 1984 VW Vanagon. Dad imbued a love of sports cars and fast sedans as well. I remember sitting on the package shelf of his 1981 Mazda RX-7, listening to him explain to my Mom - for Nth time - what made the rotary engine so special. I remember bracing myself for the laggy whoosh of his turbo diesel Mercedes-Benz 300D, and later, his '87 Porsche Turbo. We were a Toyota family in my coming-of-age years. At 15 years and 6 months, I scored 100 percent on my driving license test, behind the wheel of Mom's 1991 Toyota Previa. As a reward, I was handed the keys to my brother's 1986 Celica GT-S. Six months and three speeding tickets later, I was booted off the family insurance policy and into a 1983 Toyota 4x4 (Hilux, baby). It took me through the rest of college and most of my time at USC, where I worked for the Daily Trojan newspaper and graduated with a biology degree and business minor. Cars took a back seat during my stint as a science teacher for Teach for America. I considered a third year of teaching high school science, coaching volleyball, and helping out with the newspaper and yearbook, but after two years of telling teenagers to follow their dreams, when I wasn't following mine, I decided to pursue a career in freelance photography. After starving for 6 months, I was picked up by a tiny tuning magazine in Orange County that was covering "The Fast and the Furious" subculture years before it went mainstream. I went from photographer-for-hire to editor-in-chief in three years, and rewarded myself with a clapped-out 1989 Nissan 240SX. I subsequently picked up a 1985 Toyota Land Cruiser (FJ60) to haul parts and camera gear. Both vehicles took me to a more mainstream car magazine, where I first sipped from the firehose of press cars. Soon after, the Land Cruiser was abandoned. After a short stint there, I became editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Sport Compact Car just after turning 30. My editorial director at the time was some long-haired dude with a funny accent named Angus MacKenzie. After 18 months learning from the best, Angus asked me to join Motor Trend as senior editor. That was in 2007, and I've loved every second ever since.
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