Call a Tesla and it will come
Software update will let vehicles find their owners, put themselves away in garages
PALO ALTO — When Tesla Motors releases the Model X this summer, it also will update its cars’ software to install the most advanced autonomous driving features on the market.
In a news conference Thursday, CEO Elon Musk revealed that a software update planned this year will allow an equipped Model S or Model X to drive short distances by itself on
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Formore news on Tesla and other Silicon Valley technology companies, go to www.sv.com. private property, as well as offer automatic steering features.
“You will be able to hit the ‘Summon’ button on your phone, and the car will find you,” Musk said. “You can press it again and the car will put itself to bed in the garage and close the garage door.”
Even driving short distances without a driver behind the wheel would give Tesla’s cars the most advanced autonomous capabilities so far, Kelley Blue Book analyst Karl Brauer said Thursday,
“It would be the furthest someone has pushed the autonomous thing,” Brauer said in a telephone interview.
Google has worked extensively on driverless cars as part of its experi-
mental Google X division, and Mercedes-Benz showed off its advances in the field this week in the Bay Area. Tesla last year began manufacturing its Model S sedan with radar and ultrasonic sensors as well as a camera to assist in Musk’s eventual goal of allowing the car to drive without the need for human interaction.
Tesla cautioned that the “Summon” feature may be used only on private property, a necessity as laws on the books in California and a handful of other states do not yet allow truly autonomous driving beyond testing of such vehicles. Tesla did not reveal how it would ensure the feature is restricted to owners’ private residences, saying it would disclose more when the software is released in about three months.
Brauer surmised that Tesla could figure out a way to verify users’ home addresses and ensure that the feature is used only in a specific radius based on GPS coordinates. The danger would be in users attempting to hack into the software to make it work elsewhere, such as a mall parking lot.
“It sounds a little tricky at best. At worst, it’s going to have liabilities or be very restrictive, or both,” he said.
The automatic steering features Tesla will introduce are not unique, with newer Mercedes S-class cars offering similar features that help steer and control cars on the highway. The Mercedes features require more driver interaction than Tesla’s autopilot system though, Musk pointed out.
“We’re now almost able to travel all the way from San Francisco to Seattle without the driver touching any controls at all,” the Tesla CEO said Thursday, adding later that “it is technically capable of going parking lot to parking lot.”
He added, however, that Teslas will not be able to accomplish that type of trip at launch: The autopilot feature would not be safe in “a suburban setting,” and a driver would still have to be on alert in some fashion, similar to pilots’ use of their version.
“In an airplane, there is an expectation that a pilot is paying attention,” Musk pointed out. “You’re not supposed to turn on autopilot and then go to sleep.”
These features will be included in Tesla’s 7.0 software update, which is expected to arrive this summer with the introduction of its second all-electric model completely designed and manufactured by the Palo Alto company, the SUV-style Model X. Musk said the Model X will have version 7.0 when it rolls off the lot of the company’s Fremont manufacturing hub.
Before that, Tesla will introduce another update, version 6.2, that will offer driver-assistance features such as automatic emergency braking and blind spot warnings. Tesla especially focused on new offerings that Musk says will “end range anxiety,” the fear that a Tesla will run out of juice without a charger nearby — the update will have new maps that constantly track superchargers within range of the car’s current energy level, and will warn drivers if they are in danger of moving outside of range of a nearby charger.
“Essentially, the new navigation system does the thinking on behalf of the driver, rather than leaving the driver to figure out his necessary stops using a circular range-radius and a map,” Dougherty analyst Andrea James wrote in a note Thursday.
Tesla Motors stock gained ahead of Thursday’s announcement, which Musk previewed on Twitter earlier this week, but then fell after the details were released, closing with a 2.5 percent drop at $195.65.