TECHnalysis Research Blog Extra

October 21, 2016
Tesla Hardware Upgrade to Enable More Autonomous Cars

By Bob O'Donnell

Tesla Motors unveiled a next-generation set of sensor hardware and compute engine for its line of electric cars and announced that, going forward, all of its cars will be enabled for fully autonomous driving with future over-the-air software updates. Of course, exactly what’s meant by “fully autonomous driving” remains to be seen, but it is, nevertheless, an important step for the company.

One of the big winners in the announcement is nVidia, whose DrivePX 2 platform was selected to sit at the computing heart of this new technology upgrade. The DrivePX 2, which was unveiled at this year’s CES, features nVidia’s Tegra CPU and Pascal GPU engines and is targeted exactly at the kinds of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous driving applications that Tesla promises will be enabled over the new several years.

In addition to the DrivePX 2, the upgraded Tesla solution features 8 new 360° cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars and one forward-facing radar versus one forward-facing camera and a lesser number of lower-resolution radar sensors. According to the company, these additional and upgraded sensors are essential in enabling the additional levels of autonomous control they plan to offer.

In a strange and controversial move, Tesla CEO Elon Musk chided people not to write negative articles about the potential concerns around the semi-autonomous capabilities that this new upgrade will enable (something I already did several months ago in this piece for USAToday: “Is semi-autonomous driving really viable?”). In fact, he actually said doing so essentially amounts to “killing people” because it could somehow delay the expected safety benefits that autonomous cars are expected to bring. While I’m certainly positive about the potential for saving lives and improving overall automobile safety, attempting to shut down debate on a discussion-worthy topic seems dangerous itself—particularly in a democratic society with a free press.

Despite this problematic stance, it is good to see Tesla continuing to press forward with its ambitious plans for improving autonomy and safety in cars. There’s no question that without their aggressive efforts, the rest of the auto industry would be moving at a slower pace.

Here's a link to the column: https://techpinions.com/unpacked-for-friday-october-21st-2016/47594

Bob O’Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech.