Connect with us

News

Tesla to utilize micro maps for pothole-detection in future update

(Credit: Tesla)

Published

on

Elon Musk confirmed a future update will allow Tesla vehicles to create micro maps of roads that will help owners avoid potholes or other changes in the environment that are not available in conventional maps. The micro maps created from data collected by its fleet will be shared with fellow Tesla owners when they drive along the same road.

Reto Siegrist from Switzerland asked the Tesla CEO on Twitter about the possibility of adding the micro map feature to which Musk replied with a simple, “Yes.” Potholes can be big headaches for Tesla owners because they can cause serious accidents, damage tires and rims, which need repairs that can instantly burn through a few thousand dollars.

According to TRIP, a national transportation research non-profit group, about a third of major urban roads in the United States have pavements that are in substandard condition. Driving on such deteriorated roads cost motorists around $130 billion.

Advertisement

“Drivers are paying a hefty price for our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. Those traveling daily through urban cities bear the weight of the problem – with many wasting thousands of dollars each year on rising transportation costs due to pot holes and wasted fuel,” said Kathleen Bower, AAA senior vice president of public affairs and international relations

Elon Musk has previously mentioned an anti-pothole feature that will allow Autopilot to safely avoid potholes without the need for driver input. This micro map shared among Tesla vehicles on the road will be a welcome addition to the anti-pothole feature.

Detecting potholes can actually be challenging because unlike other obstacles, they are depressions on the road and may present differently depending on the current weather and lighting condition. In an ideal situation, the camera of Tesla’s electric car can determine a pothole by comparing the surface irregularity with the rest of the road and the texture inside the pothole compared to nearby pavement.

Advertisement

Tesla shared how its team is making progress in terms of developing its Full Self-Driving capabilities.

“…in terms of labeling, labeling with video in all eight cameras simultaneously. This is a really, I mean in terms of labeling efficiency, arguably like a three order of magnitude improvement in labeling efficiency,” Musk said.

The detection of potholes and the ability to seamlessly negotiate such obstacles on the road will be one big step for Tesla’s dream of having a fleet of truly autonomous cars. The ability of each car to share this information with other Teslas is also making most of the technology to make roads safer for everyone.

“Our networks learn from the most complicated and diverse scenarios in the world, iteratively sourced from our fleet of nearly 1M vehicles in real-time. A full build of Autopilot neural networks involves 48 networks that take 70,000 GPU hours to train. Together, they output 1,000 distinct tensors (predictions) at each timestep,” Tesla wrote to describe how its Autopilot neural networks work.

Elon Musk is also making sure that Tesla can accelerate further development of its FSD and Autopilot and will host an AI party at his house in a few weeks’ time. During the said event, Musk is hoping to find new talents to join Tesla and make functional applications out of the data available to the company.

Advertisement

A curious soul who keeps wondering how Elon Musk, Tesla, electric cars, and clean energy technologies will shape the future, or do we really need to escape to Mars.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Elon Musk reveals date of Tesla Robotaxi’s first rides open to public

Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to roll out new details regarding the Robotaxi launch that is expected to happen soon.

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla Robotaxi is set to launch in the coming days, but the first rides will be confined to those who receive invitations that the company sends out. However, CEO Elon Musk revealed the date that Tesla is aiming for when anyone in the general public will be able to call for a Robotaxi.

There has been quite a bit of information today about what appears to be an imminent launch of the Robotaxi platform. The first video of a Robotaxi was captured on a public road in Austin today, just one day after Tesla was added to the City of Austin’s list of licensed autonomous vehicle operators.

First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

In the coming days, it is expected that Tesla will launch the Robotaxi platform in Austin to a select few. For now, Tesla is taking this ultra-conservative approach as it pertains to the rollout, citing safety precautions. It will be the first time Tesla has done this in public and offered it to people outside of the company.

It did launch a small, limited version of it to employees last month in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area, but there was someone in the driver’s seat. Today’s video only had an occupant in the passenger seat.

Advertisement

People are eager to know: when will they be able to fetch a driverless Tesla Model Y Robotaxi in Austin for themselves? Musk finally answered the long-awaited question with a tentative date of June 22:

Musk cited that Tesla’s utmost priority is still safety and not necessarily the speed of rollout. The current plan seems to be to deploy it in a controlled and slow fashion until confidence is at an extremely high level. Musk seems to believe the rollout will go smoothly, as the date comes less than two weeks after the initial launch.

Advertisement

Anyone who has experienced Full Self-Driving for themselves knows what the cars are capable of. However, Tesla, at this point in time, still requires drivers to pay attention and remain ready to take over the wheel in case of an emergency. This will be a major step in the right direction for Tesla as it prepares to launch Robotaxi in Austin and slowly expand to surrounding areas.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk says Tesla Robotaxi launch will force companies to license Full Self-Driving

“The automakers keep being told that this isn’t real or that just buying some hardware from Nvidia will solve it. As Tesla robotaxis become widespread and their other solutions don’t work, they will naturally turn to us.”

Published

on

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the automaker’s Robotaxi platform launch later this month will essentially force other companies to license Full Self-Driving to achieve their own goals of achieving autonomy.

Musk’s statement comes as a video captured today showed the first Tesla Robotaxi test mules on public streets in Austin, Texas, just one day after the City officially listed the company as an autonomous vehicle operator.

A prediction by investing YouTube and Tesla community member Dave Lee stated that “at least one automaker by end of year” will license Full Self-Driving from the Musk-led company, as it will give rivals the confidence to use the software to run their own self-driving operations.

Lee detailed his theory by stating that the company that chooses to commit to FSD licensing will not be able to integrate the hardware and sell those units immediately. Instead, it will take two years or so to solve the engineering and design applications.

First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

Advertisement

Musk revealed his true thoughts on other automakers’ attempts at vehicle autonomy, and said many are being told that Robotaxi is not real or that they can solve their problems with hardware orders to Nvidia.

He went on to say that companies will be forced to turn to Tesla at some point or another, because Robotaxi will be widespread and their solutions to figuring out an effective deployment will prove to be failures:

“The automakers keep being told that this isn’t real or that just buying some hardware from Nvidia will solve it. As Tesla robotaxis become widespread and their other solutions don’t work, they will naturally turn to us.”

Musk has not been shy to respond to speculation regarding the video of the Robotaxi, which was shared on X earlier today. This is perhaps one of the more fiery things he revealed. He seems ultra-confident in what Tesla will prove and achieve in the near future with the launch of the Robotaxi platform.

Many believe it will be rolled out this month. Bloomberg reported recently that Tesla was internally aiming for June 12. The company has not directly responded to these rumors.

Tesla has discussed on several occasions that it is in talks with an automaker about licensing Full Self-Driving, but it has never revealed who. The company first revealed discussions with another automaker in early 2024 when Elon Musk said:

“We’re in conversations with one major automaker regarding licensing FSD. It really just becomes a case of having them use the same cameras and inference computer and licensing our software. Once it becomes obvious that if you don’t have this (FSD) in a car, nobody wants your car. It’s a smart car… The people don’t understand all cars will need to be smart cars, or you will not sell, or nobody would buy it. Once that becomes obvious, I think licensing becomes not optional.”

Advertisement

Tesla confirms it is in talks with major automaker for potential FSD licensing

Many, including us, suspected that Ford was the company that Tesla was speaking of due to Musk’s relationship with Jim Farley, which resulted in the legacy automaker being the first major car company to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), which gave them access to the Supercharging Network.

This catalyzed an onslaught of companies choosing to make the same move as Tesla had truly set itself apart in terms of charging infrastructure.

Companies may be forced to make a similar decision if it can make the same type of statement with the rollout of Robotaxi.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reveals new details about Robotaxi rollout

The first Tesla Robotaxi unit was spotted in Austin earlier today, and CEO Elon Musk is revealing some cool new details.

Published

on

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed new details about the company’s relatively imminent rollout of the Robotaxi platform as the suspected launch date of June 12 continues to near.

Earlier today, the first video showing the first driverless Tesla Robotaxi in Austin was shared on X, just a day after the City officially listed the company as an autonomous vehicle operator on its website. Tesla is listed as a company in the “Testing” phase.

The initial details of the Robotaxi are being revealed by Musk, who is carefully releasing small tidbits that seem to show the capabilities of the entire Tesla fleet, and not necessarily just the vehicles that will be involved in the initial rollout in Austin.

First Tesla driverless robotaxi spotted in the wild in Austin, TX

His first tidbit is one that many Tesla owners and fans will already know: many Teslas are capable of this driveless performance, but Full Self-Driving is not yet refined to the point where the software is quite ready to handle it. Current versions are robust, but not prepared for driverless navigation. The hardware, however, will enable Teslas to be Robotaxis, even if they’re already purchased by owners:

This is one of the biggest advantages Tesla has over other vehicle makers. Simply put, the Over-the-Air software updates that will roll out to FSD users will eventually make their cars into Robotaxis as well.

However, Musk shed some details on the version of FSD that is being run in these new Robotaxis that were spotted. Musk said that the version these Robotaxis are running is a new version, but will soon “merge to main branch.”

There is also an even newer version that has four times the parameters as this newer version that the test-stage Robotaxis are using, but Musk admits that this needs significant refinement before it is released to the public.

As of now, Tesla is simply teasing the actual launch date of the Robotaxi program, but Bloomberg reported earlier this month that it will occur on June 12.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending