I think today's announcement about what is effectively AP 2.0 is fantastic. It sounds like Tesla will be delivering much more than most people expected in the very near future.
I do have a concern, though, about the following, from the blog post:
"Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and convenience. While this is occurring, Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency braking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. As these features are robustly validated we will enable them over the air, together with a rapidly expanding set of entirely new features."
Those features that will be "temporarily lacking" are features that the new owners-to-be paid for, and counted on having. Yes, they may be getting more than they bargained for eventually, getting the option to utilize AP 2.0 instead of the current Autopilot features. If "temporarily" is a short time, I expect everything will, for the most part, be fine. But if things drag on, as some promised and paid for features have in the past, I imagine some of these new owners will grow impatient about not having features that they ordered and paid for.
Let's just hope "temporarily" is a short time.
I do have a concern, though, about the following, from the blog post:
"Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and convenience. While this is occurring, Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency braking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. As these features are robustly validated we will enable them over the air, together with a rapidly expanding set of entirely new features."
Those features that will be "temporarily lacking" are features that the new owners-to-be paid for, and counted on having. Yes, they may be getting more than they bargained for eventually, getting the option to utilize AP 2.0 instead of the current Autopilot features. If "temporarily" is a short time, I expect everything will, for the most part, be fine. But if things drag on, as some promised and paid for features have in the past, I imagine some of these new owners will grow impatient about not having features that they ordered and paid for.
Let's just hope "temporarily" is a short time.