Tesla Full Self-Driving Feature To Launch Soon, Autopilot Upgrade Already In Production

Electric vehicle maker Tesla’s hotly anticipated “full self-driving” (FSD) feature will be showcased to investors on April 19 prior to its launch. Tesla’s self-driving computer, previously known as the Autopilot Hardware 3.0 upgrade is also under production.

The FSD demo may take place on April 19, when Tesla hosts “Investor Day” at its Palo Alto headquarters.

A press release by Tesla said the April 19 event will “provide a deep dive into our self-driving technology and road map.”

To be webcast live, the event will give investors the opportunity to take test drives in Tesla vehicles equipped with the latest Autopilot features including some new technologies under development.

“Tesla is making significant progress in the development of its autonomous driving software and hardware, including our FSD computer, which is currently in production and which will enable full-self driving via future over-the-air software updates,” the release updated.

The event will be addressed by CEO Elon Musk and senior executives.

Tesla’s FSD computer enters production

The under-production, Tesla Full Self-Driving computer will render Tesla vehicles the ability to drive themselves after the over-the-air software updates.

But the press release is not clear on demonstrating that specific capability on April 19. However, given that the computer for full autonomy in production will mean investors may indeed get a chance to witness how a Tesla drives itself.

Tesla has been working on the important product and a new AI chip, or “neural net accelerator’ was to be incorporated in the Autopilot Hardware 3.0 computer as an upgrade.

Pete Bannon, the Tesla official in charge of the project stated in 2018 that production of the Autopilot Hardware 3 computer will be scaled up by the end of the first quarter of 2019.

But Tesla has not confirmed when the new FSD technology’s induction inside the vehicles in production will happen.

On the pricing front, Tesla had announced a 50 percent price cut on Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability for Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X and Tesla Model 3 vehicles.

Interested buyers were invited to use a one-click payment mode to add Autopilot to any existing vehicle for $2,000 and FSD for $2,000, down from $5,000 to add after delivery.

Trying to prove critics wrong

The Autonomy Investor Day is Tesla’s serious initiative to demonstrate its full self-driving initiatives. This comes at the time criticism is mounting that Tesla is a bit late or conservative in rolling out its autonomous driving capabilities with the focus shifting to improvements in existing features like Navigate on Autopilot and Summon.

Now, these two features have been integrated into the company’s Full Self-Driving suite.

Elon Musk had hinted that the upcoming FSD capabilities of Tesla will be unique with the ability to recognize traffic lights, stop signs and automatic driving capabilities in city streets.

At the same time, Tesla has been taking note of the criticism that its self-driving efforts are a bit tardy vis a vis others like Google’s Waymo and GM Cruise which are aiming for Level 5 autonomous driving features.

A study by Navigant Research rated Tesla as the second-worst company in autonomous driving technology with a rank just above Apple that is at the bottom of the list.

It looks Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day is a way to prove the critics wrong and send a message to the market that Tesla’s promised FSD features are very much on the way.