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Mobileye CTO on Building Autonomous Driving Systems

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Autonomous driving system

Mobileye autonomous driving systems

Professor Amnon Shashua, co-founder and CTO of Mobileye, gave a talk recently explaining how his company builds its autonomous driving systems. One point he emphasizes is that identifying other vehicles and people in the vicinity of the car is the easy part. What’s difficult to achieve is controlling the car so that it stays within the limits of the roadway, especially when road markings, curbs, and other indications of where the physical edges of the permissible driving space are lacking.

Shashua breaks the process into three main components — sensing, road experience management, and driving policy, which he calls “planning.” The first collates all the data coming into the system from cameras, radar, and, in some cases, Lidar. The second phase creates an environmental model that orients the car and determines its place on the road. The third phase uses all the prior information to determine all the available pathways forward and which is preferred.

Next, he goes on to speak in detail about what he calls “deep learning.” Shashua says despite its current popularity, there is a great deal of hype surrounding it. He explains why some aspects of deep learning fail to give the zero failure results required to make accurate autonomous driving possible. In particular, he shows why what he calls the “end to end approach” does not live up to its promise.

Mobileye autonomous driving

He prefers what he calls “semantic abstraction,” a process that breaks down the tasks the system must perform into discrete subsystems, each with its own function to perform. He feels the latter is more accurate and gives the fewest false positives or false negatives. The end to end system does not require image annotations, but Shashua says Mobileye has 600 people on staff annotating images and expects to have 1,000 or more shortly.

What is important, Shushua maintains, is dealing with what he calls “corner cases.” These are the anomalies that happen in regular driving that are rare, unexpected, or unusual — like a construction vehicle moving slowly near a highway. It is those corner cases that require the most sophisticated technological solutions and the types of situations that end to end systems do not handle well.

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Watch the entire 30 minute video for yourself to learn more about some of the elements that go into Tesla’s Autopilot technology.

Source: Mobileye via YouTube
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Tesla Megapacks arrive for massive battery replacing coal plant

Tesla Megapacks have started arriving on-site to the Stanwell Battery Project, just as Queensland prepares to wind down the Stanwell coal plant.

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Credit: Tesla

The first of over 300 Tesla Megapacks have arrived to the site of a massive battery energy storage system (BESS) being built in Australia, dubbed the Stanwell Battery Project after a coal plant it’s set to replace.

In a press release last week, the Stanwell Battery Project announced that the first Tesla Megapack 2XL units had arrived to the site, which is located outside of Rockhampton in Queensland, Australia. The project will eventually feature 324 Megapack units, set to arrive in the coming months, in order to support the 300MW/1,200MWh battery project.

“The Stanwell Battery is part of the diversification of our portfolio, to include cleaner and more flexible energy solutions,” said Angie Zahra, Stanwell Central Generation General Manager. “It is just one part of the 800 MW of battery energy storage capacity we have in our pipeline.

“Capable of discharging 300 MW of energy for up to four hours (1,200 MWh), our mega battery will be one of the largest in Queensland.”

Credit: Stanwell

READ MORE ON TESLA MEGAPACKS: Tesla Lathrop Megafactory celebrates massive Megapack battery milestone

The state is working with government-owned company Yurika to facilitate construction, and the process is expected to create roughly 80 jobs. The project is expected to come fully online in May 2027, with initial commissioning of the Megapacks aiming for November 2025.

The Stanwell Battery is set to replace the nearby Stanwell coal generation plant, which the government is planning to wind down starting in 2026 as part of efforts to reach an 80 percent renewable energy generation ratio by 2035. Meanwhile, the government is also set to begin winding down the Tarong and Callide coal plants, while several other Megapack projects are being built or coming online. o ya

Tesla currently has two Megapack production facilities, located in Lathrop, California, in the U.S. and another that came online earlier this year in Shanghai, China. The Shanghai Megafactory shipped its first units to Australia in March, while both factories are expected to be capable of producing 10,000 Megapack units per year upon reaching volume production.

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The Tesla Diner is basically finished—here’s what it looks like

The company first broke ground on the Diner, Drive-in, and Supercharger location in September 2023. Now, it has served one of its first internal customers.

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Tesla has finally completed the construction of its highly anticipated Diner, Drive-in, and Supercharger in Los Angeles, and recent photos of the interior’s “retro-futuristic” style are making their way around the internet.

X user Brad Goldberg shared photos from the Tesla Diner site last Tuesday, depicting some of the Supercharger stalls, indoor and outdoor seating areas, multiple neon lights, and even an Optimus robot. Goldberg also noted that there had been a “flurry of activity on site” while he was snapping the photos last week, suggesting that the restaurant location could be getting close to opening.

The Tesla Diner also served one of its first internal customers in the past few days, as Elon Musk posted on X on early Monday morning that he had just finished up eating a meal at the site:

I just had dinner at the retro-futuristic Tesla diner and Supercharger.

Team did great work making it one of the coolest spots in LA!

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The photos also show that the site is pretty much done, with some of them even showing vehicles charging at the charging stalls.

You can see some of the latest photos of the Tesla Diner below.

Credit: BradGoldbergMD | X

Credit: BradGoldbergMD | X

Credit: BradGoldbergMD | X

Credit: BradGoldbergMD | X

Credit: TeslaKing420 | X

Credit: TeslaKing420 | X

Credit: Brad Goldberg (via Sawyer Merritt on X)

Credit: Brad Goldberg (via Sawyer Merritt on X)

Credit: Brad Goldberg (via Sawyer Merritt on X)

Credit: Brad Goldberg (via Sawyer Merritt on X)

Credit: Brad Goldberg (via Sawyer Merritt on X)

READ MORE ON TESLA’S LA DINER: Tesla readies Drive-In Diner Supercharger for launch with app inclusion

When will the Tesla Diner open to external customers?

While it’s still not open to external customers yet, the news again suggests that the company could be close to an official opening date. Tesla first broke ground on the Diner in September 2023, after receiving a wave of building permit approvals throughout that yearTeslarati also covered much of the construction progress throughout last year, including when crews installed the first and second drive-in screens.

Located at 7001 West Santa Monica Boulevard, the idea was first discussed in 2018 by Musk and a few others on Twitter, featuring 1950s rock and roll, waiters on roller skates, and drive-in movie theater screens playing clips from some of history’s best movies. Notably, the photos of the front doors also show that the site will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whenever it does end up opening.

Tesla’s progress on Supercharger with diner, drive-in seen in aerial footage

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Tesla updates Robotaxi app with several big changes, including wider service area

Tesla’s Robotaxi app has gotten another update, and this time it offers a wider service area, but there are a lot of other changes, too.

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Credit: @AdanGuajardo/X

Tesla is rolling out its second update to its Robotaxi app after it launched the driverless ride-hailing service less than a month ago in Austin.

Among the changes, Tesla has expanded its service area, added walking directions to both the pickup and dropoff areas, added closing times for dropoff destinations, and allowed editing of your destination after booking a ride.

The new app version, Robotaxi 25.7.5, was rolled out on Monday morning. The biggest change is the near doubling of the service area, as Tesla expanded the possible travel region by a significant margin:

Tesla’s Robotaxi geofence in Austin grows, and its shape is hard to ignore

It’s no surprise Tesla decided to push the envelope with a new, interesting shape to the geofenced area that is hard to ignore.

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The new region includes notable points of interest in Austin, most notably is the University of Texas at Austin. Tesla included the school, which has over 53,000 students, in this expansion, and it could be pushing the app and service to some of them in the coming weeks.

It’s a great addition as it is a highly concentrated area of the city, full of students and visitors.

Robotaxi app changes outside of new service area

Tesla has also added a handful of new changes. With its first update of the Robotaxi app, Tesla addressed several highly requested changes, including the ability to adjust the pickup location instead of being fixed to a default spot.

Walking Directions to Pickup and Destination

In congested and large metro areas, ride-sharing pickups are sometimes confusing to navigate to. When it comes to dropoff at your destination, exiting the vehicle at the front door is not always possible (many in Austin noticed this at Terry Black’s BBQ).

Tesla Robotaxi’s biggest challenge seems to be this one thing

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Now, the app will guide you on how to reach your Robotaxi and your destination when pickup and dropoff are not available at the entrances of the establishments you’re visiting.

Search Results now show closing times

If you’re going to arrive at an establishment close to its closing time, the Robotaxi app will now warn you that you could arrive with only a few minutes to spare, or you could miss it altogether.

This is a nice touch because there’s nothing worse than craving some ice cream at 10 p.m., only to arrive and see the doors are locked and the lights are off.

Many navigation apps have this integrated to eliminate any confusion about closing times.

Destination editing after booking

This feature could go hand-in-hand with the closing times. As a business might close shortly after your arrival, you might find it advantageous to visit another establishment that has more time to serve you.

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You can now pivot your destination after you have entered your Roobtaxi.

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