Did Elon Musk request a special version of his famous Autopilot? This is what he believes an American hacker, “greentheonly”, has discovered, recounting his experience in a series of tweets included in an article in The Verge.
A great autopilot?
This fine connoisseur of the computer codes of the American brand’s vehicles has detected a hidden feature: the “Elon Mode”. Once activated, the vehicle can run the most advanced version of Tesla’s driving assistant in what appears to be an experimental mode, allowing the car to evolve without driver supervision.
After driving nearly 1,000 kilometers in these conditions, he explains that while overall everything went well, he was still noticing strange vehicle behavior at times, with random lane changes, rather slow speed in highway traffic, and, above all, no alerts asking you to take back control.
The current system requires you to hold the steering wheel and even move it slightly to signal your presence. The hacker shows a summary of his trip in a video posted on YouTube.
Note that this feature was discovered on a Model X that belonged to Tesla. Hence the suspicions of a special request from the Tesla boss to test what would be a rampant version of Autopilot by himself, or by internal development teams.
The brand had already shared examples of highly autonomous driving. In 2016, for example, with precisely a Model X capable of connecting point A with point B without driver intervention. We can also cite this video posted at the beginning of 2021 by an owner, who had driven 576 kilometers, letting his vehicle act on its own.
Where in the “autonomous” driving offer at Tesla?
This is also the promise of this assistant called FSD (for “Full self driving”, the “totally autonomous driving capacity” in France), which can be activated on all models of the brand in beta version. Except, for the time being, driver supervision is still required.
Actually, there is only one exception currently, the most advanced system offered by Mercedes, which allows you to stop paying attention to the road, in Germany and in very specific conditions (in a fast lane in traffic jams, no more than 60 km / h For example).
On Tesla’s side, the FSD still has very limited capabilities. Compared to the standard Autopilot (adaptive cruise control with following the lines of the road), it mainly assumes the functions of the “Enhanced Autopilot” (billed at 3800 euros in France), which adds certain advanced functions, such as automatic lane change . On the motorway, the possibility of using the insertion and deceleration lanes or even parking lanes or automatic parking exit lanes.
The FSD or “fully autonomous driving capability” (7,500 euros in France) only offers the addition of “recognition and reaction to traffic lights and stop signs” (the car will slow down and stop if it detects a red light or a red signal). stop) .
The real point of this option: make sure you take advantage of future updates, with the “upcoming” function of “automatic driving in the city”. Betting on a future rise in the price of the option (currently billed at $15,000 in the US), which would make taking advantage of highly assisted driving much less affordable.
Regarding its configurator and despite the soap opera around this controversial name of Autopilot (literally “autopilot” in French), Tesla continues to be quite clear in its explanation of the conditions surrounding these options that are still quite atypical in the automotive offer. current:
“Current features require active driver control and do not cause the vehicle to drive itself. Some features require turn signal activation and are limited in range. Future activation and use of these unattended features is dependent on the ‘reliability shown by billions of kilometers of testing to be significantly better than that of human drivers, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer to obtain in some countries.
The latest news, Elon Musk would trust artificial intelligence to improve his FSD and has already announced significant progress on the latest version of the update being deployed.
Source: BFM TV
