All Tesla vehicles in production capable of self-driving, says the company

Business Thursday 20/October/2016 11:50 AM
By: Times News Service
All Tesla vehicles in production capable of self-driving, says the company

San Francisco: Tesla Motors Inc. chief executive officer Elon Musk said all vehicles currently being produced at its factory, including the upcoming Model 3, will have full self-driving capability.
Every vehicle built “will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The vehicles have eight cameras and 12 sensors giving full 360-degree visibility, the company said.
“To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software,” Tesla’s statement said. “Together, this system provides a view of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction simultaneously and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses.”
For Musk, bringing the Model 3 - more affordable than the Model S sedan or Model X sport utility vehicle - to market fulfills the company’s longstanding vision of accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable transportation. Customers earlier this year stood in long lines at Tesla stores around the world to place $1,000 reservations, giving Musk an "iPhone momement" that is unprecedented in the auto industry.
Musk first revealed the Model 3 in March at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, California. He said then that the driver-assist Autopilot features would be standard on the car, which also would have a continuous plane of glass to give the cabin an expansive feeling of openness. And, in a March 30 tweet, he hinted that there was more to come: “Tomorrow is Part 1 of the Model 3 unveil. Part two, which takes things to another level, will be closer to production.”
The tweet prompted speculation that “level” refers to the auto industry’s scale for vehicle automation, with Level 0 being none and Level 5 as a fully self-driving car. Tesla’s current Autopilot system would be classified as Level 2, with the expectation that the human driver is consistently monitoring the environment and is prepared to engage as needed. The Palo Alto, California-based company has come under fire from Consumer Reports and others for using the name Autopilot.
Tesla now makes the Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle on a shared assembly line in Fremont, California, is preparing to introduce the more affordable Model 3 in late 2017 and has said it will eventually add a semi-truck and transit bus. The company also makes the Powerwall battery for homes and the larger Powerpacks for commercial businesses and utilities.
About 373,000 pre-orders for the Model 3 have been placed, according to figures Tesla has not updated since May. The car will seat five adults and is expected to begin at $35,000 before incentives.