One More Step Towards the Car of The Future: The Famous Tesla Model S is Almost Autonomous

Tesla Motors has created a software update for the Model S, aimed in particular to the autopilot functions. Among other things, the new update allows you to “summon” the car, and it can particularly park itself.

The functionality is similar to the one BMW has included in its newest 7 Series, but the system requires the driver to manually guide the car to the parking lot. However for Tesla, the machine does everything alone, as you can see in the video below, published by James Mejarus:

Using the standard hardware built on any Model S since October 2014, including the cameras and sensors on the fenders, the car will park by itself or will come to your request, even if the garage door are closed. Therefore, the Model S can open the garage doors, and this is possible only if you have a HomeLink device connected to these doors. In the videos below, you can see how Model S is parking by itself and how it gets our of the garage at user’s request:

The v7.1 software update also allows you to condition the autopilot so that the vehicle can exceed the speed limit with 5 miles/h. Additionally, the update allows the car to determine the types of vehicles around it on the road, as well as better lane adjustment when passing gaps in road markings (think highway exits), or in environments with faded markings. Elon Musk promises that it will launch a fully autonomous car in about two years, and so far all progress suggest that we are very close to getting there.