Tesla seems to have done away with 5mph wiggle area for its autopilot speed. After recent updates, the autopilot now sticks to the exact speed limit when using Autosteer on surface roads and undivided highways.
According to Electrek, until now, Tesla cars with Autopilot were programmable to up to 5mph over the speed limit on certain pathways using its Traffic-Aware Cruise Control feature. However, the limit has now been removed. The Autopilot has internal 90 miles per hour speed limit. The step was likely taken to make the car safer.
The electric car's Autopilot courted several controversies this year. Earlier this year, a Tesla driver had a fatal accident while the car was on Autopilot. The company will equip its new cars with fortified hardware which will lead to the introduction of "up to level 5 autonomy." The level 5 autonomy stands for fully autonomous driving.
Tesla announced that its new autopilot is likely to be out next week. Musk tweeted, "Looks like we might be ready to rollout most of Autopilot functionality for HW2 towards the end of next week." HW2 hardware was introduced in new Tesla cars in October this year.
The new hardware suite lacked many features which were available in the older models of the car. Some of these features are parking assist, blind spot detection, and auto windshield wipers. Other features such as side collision warning were incorporated through subsequent updates.
However, the new hardware features sophisticated sensors which will allow the vehicle to operate the functions which were previously unavailable.
The vehicles will require new software for this purpose. Musk noted that future software update mightt enable the hardware to carry out feats such as driving cross country. This will require the cars to comply with autonomy guidelines issued by the Highway Traffic Safety Administration.