Carmaker’s unpredictable ‘super cruise control’ tech blamed for ton of close calls
Updated Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked the Tesla owners among his millions of Twitter followers last week what aspect of their electric cars they’d most like to see improved or fixed.
Among the 24,000 or so replied, there’s a fair amount of concern about Autopilot, the assistive driving software in Tesla Model S cars.
The first reply came from a Twitter user identified as Mike Leonardi, who wrote, “Autopilot lane changes in traffic really need help!”
Musk replied that’s a top priority for Tesla and wrote off the software’s shortcomings to an excess of caution.
But Tesla’s not been so cautious that it withheld the software from the public. Rather in early October, it introduced Software Version 9.0 for its Model S, Model X, and Model 3 cars, and its mobile app.
The update includes support for a new Autopilot feature called Navigate on Autopilot, “an active guidance feature that, with driver supervision, guides a car from a highway’s on-ramp to off-ramp, including suggesting lane changes, navigating highway interchanges and taking exits.”
These new capabilities have been slowly rolling out to Tesla owners, but there’s concern Autopilot doesn’t work very well.
