Tesla has finally revealed the long-awaited ‘Part 2’ of its Model 3 and it’s game-changing – sort of, though it was nothing like the extravaganza blowout that took place on March 31.
Announced through a blog post, Tesla revealed that its mass market Model 3 will have new Autopilot hardware that allows the vehicle to be fully self-driving. More importantly, all vehicles produced off the factory line including currently available Model S and Model X will come equipped with self-driving hardware that’s 40x more powerful than previous generation hardware.
Using what the company describes as Tesla Neural Net for vision, combined with sonar and radar processing software, a Model S, X and Model 3 will be able to see the world in directions, and with precision, beyond what humans are capable of. Speaking at a press-only Q&A, Elon Musk revealed that the new technology will be powered by Nvidia’s new Titan graphics processing unit (GPU), or what he referred to as a supercomputer.
The new hardware suite will also make use of three front facing cameras backing up previous speculation that Tesla would begin using a new triple camera. In addition to the array of front facing cameras, cameras will be mounted around the entire vehicle providing the vehicle with a 360-degree view of the world around it. Imagery from the cameras will be augmented with input from ultrasonic sonars that also will provide 360-degree coverage.
Tesla vehicles produced with the new set of hardware will be capable of Level 5 autonomy or fully self-driving.
