If the recent comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk are to be believed, the next beta version of the company’s Full Self-Driving beta (FSD) will “blow your mind.” The driver assistance feature – that doesn’t fully allow autonomous driving, as the name suggests, but does offer a growing degree of self-driving capability for drivers who remain attentive on the road.
Now, the company is slowly prepping to roll out the beta version to a wider slice of the public. “Expansion will be gradual, based on ensuring maximum safety,” Musk tweeted in response to the queries regarding the expansion of the feature.
Half-baked autopilot could be dangerous
It’s great to see Musk focusing more on safety. Last month, he admitted that an old version of the FSD beta is “not great [in my opinion], but Autopilot/AI team is rallying to improve as fast as possible.”
Earlier versions of the software have been rough around the edges. Recently, a video surfaced of a Tesla Model 3 confusing a truck for traffic lights on a highway. A self-driving feature that makes mistakes could be threatening.
Previously, a Tesla driver noticed his vehicle was showing some odd readings when it cruised through the highway. It was later learned that the Tesla car was confusing the moon for an endless string of traffic lights.
New Tesla patent for windscreen wipers
Besides, Tesla has patented a new method to make use of lasers – like windshield wipers. The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Tesla a patent to use laser beams to clean debris off a windshield and might be helpful for other glass parts of the vehicle as well.
The patent is called “Pulsed laser cleaning of debris accumulated on glass articles in vehicles and photovoltaic assemblies.” The laser beams would act as “a cleaning apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: a beam optics assembly configured to emit a laser beam to irradiate a region on a glass article that is installed in the vehicle,” according to the patent. However, there’s no certainty that the patent will come to future Tesla vehicles.
