Despite the many setbacks that Tesla has faced over the last few months, most notably the deaths attributed to its “Autopilot” system, the company is still moving ahead with its plans for a fully autonomous future. Tesla declared in a recent announcement that all of its vehicles in production right now will be fully capable of autonomous driving once they hit the road. These include the Model S, Model X, and Model 3.
The move will be accomplished by providing all of the vehicles being made with advanced hardware setups that aren’t present in Tesla vehicles on the market right now. These include 360-degree cameras amounting to 8 individual pieces and placed all around the vehicle. These cameras will be able to see up to 820 feet in all directions, The Verge reports.
The vehicles will also be equipped with 12 ultrasonic sensors that are capable of detecting both hard and soft objects, as well as a radar system that faces forward and can cut through fog, rain, and even dust. There is one caveat, however; none of the vehicles will be fully autonomous from the get-go.
Basically, while the vehicles themselves are already equipped with all of the gadgets that they need for self-driving, they won’t be allowed to use them just yet. Tesla will first need to collect some more data from real-world driving rounds, which could total to several million miles worth of information.
Company CEO Elon Musk also spoke with reporters during a conference call, Bloomberg reports, where he shared his plans for when 2017 comes to a close. Musk basically wants his cars to be capable of driving from Los Angeles to New York without any driver input.
One of the most notable additions to the new lineup of gadgets introduced in the announcement is the Nvidia computer chip that will be processing the data from all of the sensors. This particular innovation reportedly has 40 times more processing power than its predecessor, allowing for better response time and data analysis.