Elon Musk Shares Updates On Tesla's Autopilot Rewrite & Upcoming Features Like Reverse Summon

Featured Image Credit: Marco Verch/Twitter

Elon Musk shared some updates about Tesla’s Autopilot rewrite and upcoming features, like Reverse Summon, on Twitter recently. Tesla’s Autopilot has received a few new features in the first half of the year, including the ability to recognize traffic lights, stop signs, and road markings. 

Musk was asked about Tesla’s Autopilot rewrite by @WholeMarsBlog on Twitter. Back in March, Musk has said that Tesla was working on Autopilot's core foundation code and labeling. “We need to finish work on Autopilot core foundation code & 3D labeling, then functionality will happen quickly. Not long now,” Musk said. 

About a month later, a former Tesla Autopilot Engineer, Eshak Mir, appeared on an episode of the Third Row Podcast and said the rewrites were a game-changer for the company. “Like we all know about the Autopilot rewrites. That’s what we were working on, and that was really showing that—as we were working on that—it was improving by like [1000%]…It was a game-changer…And working on that showed us that—you know—we can do so much better,” Mir told the Third Row members.

Going well. Team is kicking ass & it’s an honor to work with them. Pretty much everything had to be rewritten, including our labeling software, so that it’s fundamentally “3D” at every step from training through inference.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2020

Elon Musk’s recent update (seen above) about the Autopilot rewrites hint that the AI/Autopilot team has been working hard and have made progress. Musk’s words mirrored Mir’s words in April.  

“With Autopilot, we are definitely—we were—working as hard as we can towards making that full FSD a dream to come true—pretty much—for everyone. And we were working extra hours—pretty much—to do as much as we can, and the technology is just evolving itself,” said the former Tesla Autopilot Engineer.

A lot of functionality will happen all at once when we transition to the new software stack. Most likely, it will be releasable in 2 to 4 months. Then it’s a question of what functionality is proven safe enough to enable for owners.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2020

In a follow-up response (seen above) to @TeslaOwnersEBay about Reverse Summon updates, Musk said that more Autopilot functionalities would be released when Tesla transitions to its new software stack. He estimated that more Autopilot functions would be ready for release in two or four months, but would need to be tested for safety first. 

Given the information Musk shared about Autopilot, it seems that Tesla owners may expect more features to roll out before the end of the year. In a recent interview with CNBC, ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood forecasted that Tesla might launch its human-driven ride-hailing service by the end of the year.