Self-Driving Cars Already Make 60-Mile Trips Look Easy

Self-driving cars are not ready to sweep the world…yet. By the most conservative estimates, it might take another decade to make autonomous-drive features standard in cars. With that out of the way, most drivers are amazed when they learn what they are capable of in 2016, especially the Tesla Autopilot system that has won over the tech community. A Model S can now make runs of 60 miles or longer without much of any driver interaction.

Daniel Sparks, a tech specialist for the investment website Motley Fool, covered 61 miles in a Model S P90D without engaging the accelerator, brake pedal, or steering wheel. Sticking exclusively to the highway setting Autopilot was made for, Sparks claimed to have only touched the wheel once — to avoid an encroaching truck — in the 81-mile journey from Monument, Col. to Colorado City.

Using the navigation technology and sensors that respond to vehicles in and around it, the system changes lanes, holds steady, and adjusts speeds as needed. According to a report in MIT Technology Review, a driver has to establish a certain driving environment (e.g., a freeway) before letting go of the wheel. But from that point on, Autopilot can take charge, which led MIT to name it one of the breakthrough technologies of 2016.

Tesla is not the only automaker working to perfect this technology. Ford, GM, and Toyota are trying to take the lead in autonomous driving as the capabilities develop. Car and Driver recently compared the semi-autonomous capabilities of the Model S against a Mercedes S65 AMG, BMW 750i, and Infiniti Q50S.

In a 50-mile test that included 60% of highway time, the Model S Autopilot came out ahead as the “clear winner” in the test. Yet even Tesla has trouble in city driving. During a 2016 test, a Motor Trend driver had to grab the wheel on one occasion when his Model S veered to the left. At another point, he remarks that he would have collided with another vehicle had he not taken the wheel.

Highway driving is more straightforward, even when the lane changes and potential exits are confusing. Mapping systems generally know which way they are going and don’t have to look at signs or worry about jockeying for lane position. On the other hand, self-driving systems handle autonomous parking in the city, a feature that appeals to car owners hoping to avoid battle scars from other vehicles on the street.

Self-driving cars can get you long distances without requiring much in the way of input. You might consider it an advanced cruise-control system that takes the sting out of highway travel. For commuters facing lengthy round trips on a daily basis, the best autonomous driving systems already deliver a winning feature of future cars.

Tesla says its new Summon technology can save lives

Last month, Tesla Motors introduced the "Summon" feature in its 7.1 software update which allows its cars to enter or exit parking spots or garages without the driver in the car.  

On Monday, in a blog post titled "Enhancing Safety and Convenience with Summon", Tesla outlined three reasons why it believes the Summon feature will push automotive safety and convenience forward.

"While many of (the new features from the update) move the ball forward toward a safer autonomous future," Tesla said in the blog post, "none is more significant than the remote parking technology known as Summon."

The company cited three primary reasons it's belief:

1. Addresses significant safety risk of close quarter operation. According to Tesla, the Summon feature's ability to enter and exit tight spaces autonomously mitigates the danger of operating a car in close quarters. In fact, Tesla cite statistics from a NHTSA study that shows 900 people were killed and another 52,000 were injured between 2008 and 2011 just from cars backing up.  The driver's ability to monitor the car remotely as well as the presence of a slew of on board sensors allow the car and driver to a have more complete understanding of the surroundings. "While these additional layers of security will not completely eliminate accidents when using semi-autonomous features like Summon, when used correctly, they can reduce their occurrence relative to conventional driving," Tesla said.
2. Since it functions semi-autonomously, Summon technology improves convenience by allowing the car to fit into the tight spaces than would otherwise not be possible in a car that requires room for a driver to get in and out. 
3. Finally, Tesla believes its semi-autonomous drive technology such as Autopilot and its Summon feature serves as a basis upon which our society can build towards autonomous transportation. "Autopilot began this process on the highways. Summon begins it in your garage," Tesla writes in the post. "As the technology advances, the complementary capabilities of each will converge."

Your Tesla Will Park Itself Better Than You Could

Elon Musk really, really doesn’t want you to park your own car. Last month, the Tesla founder and CEO announced that the Model S and Model X versions of his zero-emissions supercars would receive the “Summon” function, allowing owners (we won’t be able to call ourselves “drivers”) to call their cars out from garages at the press of a button.

In a blog post today, Tesla announced that the Summon feature is only getting better, now allowing the vehicle to perform fine-tuned maneuvers in tight spaces and in reverse, relying on its ultrasonic sensors to perform better than the human eye, especially when the driver is outside the car with a “direct line of sight.”

Basically, Tesla is letting you get out and help your buddy parallel park, something humans have been doing for decades, except now your buddy is a semi-autonomous robot car designed by a guy who wants to live on Mars.

Tesla hopes that the new Summon software will help cut down on human error accidents that frequently happen in reverse, citing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration survey that found cars backing up caused over 900 deaths and 52,000 injuries from 2008-2011 in the U.S. alone.

The latest blog post also said Summon functions could be used to get Tesla vehicles into tighter parking and storage spaces. Their idea is for occupants to get out first, allowing the car to squeeze into a space where the doors are inaccessible. In theory, this sounds efficient, but Tesla does not address how annoying it might be to return to your non-Summonable vehicle to find it sandwiched between two gleaming future-mobiles with no room to open the doors.

New Tesla Autopilot ad shows why autonomous cars will be awesome

Automotive manufacturer Tesla Motors has unleashed a new promotional video that aim to tout the potential strengths and benefits of its new Tesla Autopilot technology in the Model S.

Still, there are some interesting features being showcased here: Hit the 'Summon' command and your autonomous motor drives itself out of your garage, or enable the program to guide your car through tight lane changes or navigate a parallel park at the end. That's not to say all of these features are exclusive to the Tesla Autopilot - far from it - but the company clearly wants you to know it's working on something special.

Of course, if you look closely you'll notice the driver in the video never actually lets go of the wheel, which is surely a call back to the recent statement from Tesla that the Model S would need a few 'limitations' in order to dissuade drivers from pulling dumb stunts with the autonomous tech while driving. The firm still hasn't revealed just how severe these limitations could be, but it's a wise move nonetheless.

Tesla hires maker of iPhone’s processors to work on Self-driving car technology

The battle in the driverless car segment intensifies as renowned carmakers are pouncing on any advantage they could get and exploit to turn the table on their rivals.

Tesla has just signified its serious intention in the autonomous car niche as it just hired a high-profile expert named Jim Keller to bolster its team further.

Keller now comes with the responsibility of spearheading the company’s Autopilot hardware engineering team, according to Electrek in its report.

While working with technology giant Apple, Jim Keller made the A4 and A5 processors that run the majority of Apple’s mobile devices between 2010 and 2012.

Tesla affirmed that “Jim Keller is joining Tesla as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering.” The company added, “Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world.”

After working with Apple he shifted to AMD, and after working for three years, he left the company in late-2015 and is now being hired Tesla to work under Elon Musk.

Tesla has installed itself as a dominant force in the auto-industry and it is considered to be leading in the race to come up with a driverless car in the near future due to its Autopilot feature in its Model S.

The company harnesses state of the art technology and features cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and data. The Model S can automatically navigate through the highway, can change lanes, and can adjust speed in reaction to traffic. Once a driver reached his destination, the Model S searches for a parking space and parallel parks on your command.

Keller will certainly have a great work responsibility at Tesla to come up with chips that drive Autopilot. Until now, Autopilot has still a long way to go, giving Keller and Co. a lot of things to get busy with working on Tesla Model 3 and future vehicles.

Tesla (TSLA), Alphabet (GOOGL) to Benefit from U.S. Self-Driving Plan

Electric car maker Tesla Motors (TSLA), Google self-driving car developer Alphabet (GOOGL) and four other automakers stood by at the Detroit auto show Thursday, supporters in a pivotal federal autonomous driving announcement, Investor’s Business Daily reported.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx introduced the Obama administration's $4 billion, 10-year plan to get self-driving cars onto U.S. roads in "corridors" throughout the country.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will aim to propose best-practices guidance within six months on the safe operation of fully autonomous vehicles.

"We are also planning to propose new regulatory interpretations in the coming weeks that will help automated vehicle manufacturers implement safety innovations within the scope of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards," Foxx said.

TSLA is a Cabot Stock of the Month and GOOGL is a Cabot Top Ten Trader stock.

Tesla Summon Hints at How the World of Self-Driving Cars Will Work

At this point, self-driving cars are futuristic in the way next Thursday is futuristic: not here yet, but definitely coming.

The government’s pumping billions into the idea, and Tesla Motors, Google, Uber, General Motors, Faraday Future, Baidu, and a long list of companies you would and wouldn’t think of are reserving their slice of the now-inevitable world where cars don’t need humans and can come to us with the press of a button.

The underlying technology—how to make these vehicles actually work—is just the first step into this world. The second step is far trickier: Rethinking the entire car culture we’ve built over the past century. “As cool as the technology is in itself,” says Thilo Koslowski, vice president and automotive practice leader at analysis firm Gartner, “it’s just the means to something more impactful.”

What do you do with your time when you’re on an eight-hour road trip but not driving? Where do these cars go when they’re not being used? Where do parking spaces go? (Audi’s got some ideas on that one.) Do we want an all-Uber world, where we’re stuck paying surge pricing for our morning commute and waiting ten minutes for the nearest driver to find our street? Do we still go to dealerships to buy cars? If not, how do we re-think car ownership? The questions go on and on, and only a few involve how to make the car drive itself.

The standard vision for a world with self-driving cars imagines fleets of vehicles roaming from place to place, anticipating and meeting demand. Nobody knows how we’ll get there, or what happens when we do. “Whenever I’m being asked about who’s a leader of this space,” Koslowski says, “I always show an empty throne.”

This week, a couple of big players started to show their early bids for the crown. Tesla announced Summon, which lets you use your phone to, well, summon your Tesla. (It’s not the most clever name.) The idea is simple: Stand at the end of your driveway and press a button, and your car will open the garage, start up, and meet you. At the end of the day, hop out and let your car put itself to bed—charging and all.

All this is “just a baby step in the direction of Summon,” CEO Elon Musk told reporters after the announcement. “Ultimately, you’ll be able to summon your car from anywhere … the car can physically get to you.” Give it two more years, he said, and “you’ll be able to summon your car from across the country.” After that, it’ll sync with your calendar to ensure your ride is waiting when your meeting ends. Summon sets the stage for a self-driving car network of one: Your Tesla’s there when you need it, and you don’t worry about it the rest of the time.

Ford’s got its own plans. The Detroit giant is looking at ways of bringing you and your friends together in beautiful car-owning harmony. Unlike GM’s Let’s Drive NYC program, or Zipcar, or Car2Go, it’s not interested in renting cars on a per-hour basis (though it’s probably looking at that too). It’s testing a setup called Ford Credit Link that allows you and as many as five buddies to lease a single car. You’d use the companion app to figure out who’s driving when, keep tabs on maintenance, and even make payments.

FordPass is designed for boring old human-driven cars, but you can see how it would make sense once the robots are in charge. Your group’s self-driving car could learn your respective schedules and needs, Summon-style, and act as your group chauffeur. You have a personal ride-sharing network, where the prices never change and you never have to talk to a rando driver or deal with the mess some stranger left behind (unless your buddies are slobs).

By 2020, Koslowski predicts, 10 percent of vehicle owners in mature, urban markets—think San Francisco, think Paris—will replace their car with access to an on-demand fleet. He’s not alone here. “[It’s] obvious to us that there are large groups of customers out there that want to have the convenience and access to a car when they need it, but they don’t want to have the hassle of ownership,” Dan Ammann, president of GM, said last week.

It seems likely that before long, if you don’t want to own a car, you won’t have to. Eventually, your personal car’s replacement will be driven by a robot instead of someone who’ll file a 1099. But even if you do keep the pink slip, you won’t be driving for much longer. You’ll be doing … something else. Nobody really knows exactly what. But there’s a huge upside to figuring that out.

Consider the fact that more than eight percent of American commuters spend more than two hours going to and from work every day. Consider the fact that self-driving cars mean all those people are a captive audience every moment they’re in the car—and that when they don’t have to drive, their attention can be drawn anywhere else. When rational capitalists hears that, their eyes turn to dollar signs.

Speaking of eyes filled with dollar signs, Uber announced this week that it’s opening an API to allow partners to offer people “experiences” during their rides. Uber thinks it can fill your 20-minute ride with a 20-minute playlist, or a news briefing, or a coupon for a nearby McDonald’s, to help you pass the time. Sure, you could continue entertaining yourself with your phone, but there’s money to be made for whoever can tailor your experience both to you and your journey.

These steps by Tesla, Ford, and Uber are nominally aimed at making mobility easier. Tesla owners don’t have to walk all the way to the garage anymore. Ford owners can reserve parking spots and schedule maintenance on their phones. Uber riders don’t have to waste their phone battery to stay entertained in the car. What’s most exciting about these programs, though, is how they position each company to maintain their relevance—and market share—as we inevitably start to surrender the wheel.

“FordPass is about building relationships with customers,” says Elena Ford, the company’s VP of consumer and dealer experience. Why? Because when customers like you, they stick with you. While Ford experiments with ride-sharing and parking-finders and all the ways people might want to own and share a car, it wants to offer people an experience just cool enough that they decide to come along for the ride.

These are all just testing grounds for the future. None of these platforms are finished, and no rules have been set for the self-driving era that is heading toward us and picking up speed, though the federal Department of Transportation and automakers want to start laying some down in the next six months. Car manufacturers are starting to find out what a truly connected ecosystem looks like, when your car knows you and itself well enough to keep both up and running.

No one knows much of anything yet—these are all shots in the dark, spaghetti thrown at the wall. These companies don’t know what they’re doing, only that change is coming and they’d better not get left behind.

Tesla cars can park on their own - Autonomously Parking video

You Can Now Autonomously Park And Summon The Tesla Model S

You can now use a smartphone to park your Tesla car

A number of Tesla Motors vehicles can now park themselves, thanks to a new software update.

The updated software – Tesla version 7.0 – also brings new speed limits on the US firm's semi-autonomous Autopilot mode.

It also brings several enhancements, including automatically slowing when the car is approaching a curve and keeping the car in its lane even when the lane markings are faded.

CEO Elon Musk said the parking feature is a "baby step" toward his eventual goal – allowing drivers to summon their self-driving, self-charging cars from anywhere using only their smartphones.

"I actually think, and I might be slightly optimistic on this, within two years you'll be able to summon your car from across the country," Mr Musk said on a conference call with reporters. "This is the first little step in that direction."

For now, though, the system isn't truly autonomous.

"It's more like remote-control parking," SpaceX and Telsa founder Elon Musk said.

Owners must line up their Model S sedan or Model X SUV within 33 feet of the space they want it to drive or back into.

They must then stand within 10 feet and direct the car to park itself using the key fob or Tesla's smartphone app.

The car can also exit the spot when the driver summons it. If it's going into a home garage, it can also open and close the garage door.

Tesla says the system is helpful for tight parking spots, but cautions that it should only be used on private property since it can't detect every potential obstacle. The car could hit bikes hanging from a garage ceiling, for example.

The software update also puts new speed limits on Tesla's semi-autonomous mode.

The car will now only drive at or slightly above the speed limit when the Autopilot mode is being used on residential roads and on roads without a center divider. If the car enters such an area in Autopilot mode, it will automatically slow down.

Musk said he's not aware of any accidents caused when a Tesla was driving in Autopilot mode, but he thinks the change won't be a problem for owners.

"On roads without a centre divider, where there's potential for a more serious collision, it makes sense not to go more than five miles per hour above the speed limit," he said.

The updates will go into about 60,000 vehicles, including Model S sedans made after September 2014 and the new Model X SUV.

Tesla hopes cars will drive themselves cross-country by 2018

Tesla only just introduced the ability to summon your car from its parking spot, but it already has much, much larger ambitions. Company chief Elon Musk is predicting that the Model S' just-introduced Summon feature will work anywhere within two years, or around 2018. As he puts it, you could ask your electric vehicle in New York City to meet you in Los Angeles -- so long as you could afford to wait a couple of days, you wouldn't have to budge. The company's snake-like automatic chargers would keep the EV running on these lengthy journeys.

That's a pretty ambitious claim (even from a CEO known for making bold predictions), and there's a good chance that political realities will prevent Tesla from fulfilling its dreams so quickly. Only a handful of US states currently allow self-driving cars in any form, let alone vehicles whose owners aren't in the same state. And of course, autonomous driving is that much more daunting when the machine has to travel across a whole country. Musk told those on a conference call that cars would need a "lot of redundancy" to make sure they don't need human involvement in mid-trip. The groundwork should exist, however, and it might not take too much longer before your car can always catch up with you.

In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 10 Janvier 2016