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Hands Free Steering by End of Month - For a small number

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Danal

electricmotorglider.com
Per the LA Times, Elon stated at the shareholder's meeting:

A small number of Tesla Model S owners will have their cars updated for a test of hands-free driving by the end of the month, Elon Musk, chief executive of the electric car company, said at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting.

In the first phase of autopilot development, Musk said, drivers will need to remain fully alert and ready to take over the driving.

The feature is designed to alleviate part of the burden of driving from the driver but not replace the person at the controls. He said such a feature will be legal because the driver would remain responsible for control of the car and in the driver's seat. “This is not an abdication of responsibility for steering,” Musk said. But Tesla is aiming for a fully autonomous system in about three years. “There will be a fully operational autopilot with everything that is needed for someone to go to sleep and wake up at their destination,” Musk said. “But this is an extremely difficult engineering project.”
Tesla would want a fully robotic car to be at least 10 times safer than a human driver before rolling it out, he said. Regulators would likely be even harder to convince, he said


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I can't wait. This is one of the major reasons I bought the car. I realize that "small number" = "anybody but me". Still, it is the first sign of timing of the rollout for auto-steering.
 
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mercedes have it allready, so I asume it is legal, as long as it is the driver who is responseble. seems to me it is the same as ordinary cruse control wich are activated by a button press and takes over your speeder./ assist you. 'keep lane' feature are just antoher autonumous feature to assist the driver.

cant wait to see this implemented and see how it will work.
 
mercedes have it allready, so I asume it is legal, as long as it is the driver who is responseble. seems to me it is the same as ordinary cruse control wich are activated by a button press and takes over your speeder./ assist you. 'keep lane' feature are just antoher autonumous feature to assist the driver.

cant wait to see this implemented and see how it will work.

The Mercedes system turns off if you take your hands off the wheel. I believe Tesla is the first manufacturer who is going to enable autonomous steering without any checking that the driver is paying attention.

This is no different than not disabling the web browser in motion - they are just treating their owners like grownups.
 
I was disappointed when he completely dodged the question of how to get on the early access list, Someone asked how to get it, Elon said you have to be on the list, but not how to get there. I'd really like to know the answer to that.

I'm ok if the answer is "we call random people and offer it, nothing you can do to increase your chances" but at least I'd like to know what it is, it would probably also save them a lot of people begging to be on the list all the time if they told people how they decided who it would be.
 
He said Beta Testers, which are a small number of Model S owners that get early access to certain firmware/features, as opposed to "Trip Planner" which carries "Beta" software status but is deployed to everyone.
I thought he said "Early Access Program".

Edit:

Tesla Motors's (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk Hosts 2015 Annual Shareholder Meeting (Transcript) | Seeking Alpha
But if we keep making progress, I think we may be able to get it out to all the access customers which is sort of our public beta program around the end of this month.
I think they got this wrong in the transcript. I heard:
early access customers which is sort of our public beta program around the end of this month.
 
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The Mercedes system turns off if you take your hands off the wheel. I believe Tesla is the first manufacturer who is going to enable autonomous steering without any checking that the driver is paying attention.

This is no different than not disabling the web browser in motion - they are just treating their owners like grownups.

Infiniti doesn't require hands on wheel.
 
I was disappointed when he completely dodged the question of how to get on the early access list, Someone asked how to get it, Elon said you have to be on the list, but not how to get there. I'd really like to know the answer to that.

I have to agree with this. "How do you get on the list? Well, to be on the list you first have to be on the list". Catch 22.
 
Basically there is no way for you to get on the list. Tesla makes the list and chooses people to potentially participate. They ask you, not the other way around. No, I'm not on the list :(

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Do you really want to beta test some code that bad that controls the steering of your 90K+ MS with you & others at risks? Nah, just let it exit beta "e.g. liability release phase" first ;-)

Yes, actually. Would love to. :)
 
I was disappointed when he completely dodged the question of how to get on the early access list, Someone asked how to get it, Elon said you have to be on the list, but not how to get there. I'd really like to know the answer to that.

I'm ok if the answer is "we call random people and offer it, nothing you can do to increase your chances" but at least I'd like to know what it is, it would probably also save them a lot of people begging to be on the list all the time if they told people how they decided who it would be.

So things that would probably keep you off the list, based on my experience of selecting testers for other products:

  • History of assuming bad intent and blasting Tesla unfairly (because god knows what you might make public if you found a bug as a tester)
  • Asking to be on the list - journalist? employee of a competitor who has bought a car? ... Not worth figuring out their motivation at trying to get on the list, just select someone else
  • Poor driving record
  • Lack of communication skills (need to be able to report accurately what you found/want changed/is lacking/broken)

Removed from the list:

  • Hinting or confirming publicly that you're a tester
  • Deliberately using the product in such a way that you could put company's reputation at risk (i.e., driving recklessly)
 
I'm ok with them having whatever rules they want for who is on the list, I was only disappointed at the obvious dodge of the question.

A perfectly acceptable answer would have been "we select people ourselves, asking to be on the list won't get you there" but "you have to be on the list" was just such an obvious dodge of the question as to sound like he was embarrassed about how it worked!
 
mercedes have it allready, so I asume it is legal, as long as it is the driver who is responseble. seems to me it is the same as ordinary cruse control wich are activated by a button press and takes over your speeder./ assist you. 'keep lane' feature are just antoher autonumous feature to assist the driver.

cant wait to see this implemented and see how it will work.
Doesn't Mercedes require the driver's hands to be on the wheel for it to work? I'm not a fan of that, but I can see why they coded the software that way. I prefer Tesla's hands free approach.
 
Doesn't Mercedes require the driver's hands to be on the wheel for it to work? I'm not a fan of that, but I can see why they coded the software that way. I prefer Tesla's hands free approach.

Not necessarily constantly on the steering wheel, but essentially so. If you do not touch the steering wheel once every 10-15 seconds, it will disengage. That is short enough that most will keep there hands in place. Also, Tesla's implementation has the benefit of accounting for emergencies. If you pass out while in Autopilot mode, the car is supposed to find a safe place to pull over. MB (though I have not looked at the paperwork) would disengage and have the passed out drive take over! Hopefully I just missed the part of disengagement and it really will, like Tesla's implementation, find a safe place to pull over.