Tesla CEO Elon Musk Hints At Autopilot Update Release, Advanced Processing And Major Improvements On Twitter

Tesla Motors has been under scrutiny ever since its first Model S fatal crash happened back in May. However, CEO Elon Musk is not letting the series of setbacks his carmaker is facing get to him. The 45-year-old visionary is hopeful that with the upcoming Autopilot update, things would fall into place.

On Wednesday, Musk took to Twitter to tease and drop hints about Autopilot v8.0 and v8.1 over-the-air updates. He may not have revealed all of the major improvements that are coming to the controversial feature of his electric cars, but he did mention that radar signals will have advanced processing in v8.0.

Shortly after, Musk followed it up with another tweet that hints at the possible release date of the v8.0 update. In the second tweet, the renowned entrepreneur noted that the update will be available to Tesla car owners in a few weeks because they still need to do one minor revision before rolling it out.

Aside from the software update, The Verge reports that Tesla Motors is also working on a hardware update that would involve the addition of radar sensors and cameras to the company’s cars, Model S and Model X.

The Autopilot feature enables Tesla’s cars to drive on their own, but only on a well-marked highway. According to the Los Angeles Times, Tesla drivers still need to be alert in controlling their vehicles, though Autopilot comes with machine steering, collision warning, adaptive cruise control and assisted lane transfer.

In related news, Tesla reportedly failed to meet the deadline the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has set for it to provide pertinent details of any alleged defects of its Autopilot feature.

The NHTSA submitted the information request on July 8 and the agency specified that Tesla should respond to it by Aug. 26. Unfortunately, Elon Musk’s carmaker failed to meet the deadline, as per Jalopnik.

To shed light on this issue, however, an NHTSA spokesperson has confirmed to Business Insider that Tesla has been given another week to comply, so the company is expected to respond to the information request before or on Sept. 2.