Tesla announces full self-driving hardware on all cars being produced

Yesterday's big Tesla news was that, "all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory – including Model 3 – will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver."

This means that Teslas will now feature, "eight surround cameras provide 360 degree visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system. A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength, capable of seeing through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead."

This is the most comprehensive application of self-driving and autonomous technology on a wide scale on production vehicles. Tesla says that, "to make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software. Together, this system provides a view of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction simultaneously and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses." This means sensors, hardware and software are now in the best position to make the jump into autonomous driving.

Tesla says that Model S and Model X vehicles with this new hardware are already in production, and customers can purchase one today. "Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and convenience."