In May, a Tesla car was involved in a fatal accident. It was a Tesla Model S that collided with a truck in Florida. As a result, the carmaker’s semi-autonomous driving system has been under the spotlight. On Sunday, the company said that it will be modifying its Autosteer semi-autonomous feature to sound a warning if drivers take their hands off the wheel for more than a minute above 75 mph.
This will take place whether there is a car in front of the driver or not. The software updates will be rolled out within the next two weeks and delivered over the air. In addition, it will only affect Tesla vehicles built since October 2014. Autopilot uses radar, cameras and sensors to steer vehicles and adjust speed.
Joshua Brown was the first known death of a driver using the system. His car could not tell the difference between a truck and the sky–therefore, it failed to break automatically. In a conference call, Musk said:
Ultimately, this will probably be a threefold improvement in safety. This is not going from bad to good. It’s going from good to, I think, great.
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