INTERNATIONAL - Tesla Inc. will delay the Autopilot drive for navigation, Elon Musk said a day after the technology was ranked second in a Consumer Reports survey.
The company is moving ahead with a “wide release” for the ninth version of its software, while holding back on the much-anticipated Autopilot refresh, Chief Executive Officer Musk said in a tweet Friday.
V9 moving to wide release now. Holding back Autopilot drive on navigation for a few more weeks of validation. Extremely difficult to achieve a general solution for self-driving that works well everywhere.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2018
Tesla’s much-touted software failed to win the top spot in a survey of automated driving systems by Consumer Reports, which gave that position to the Cadillac’s Super Cruise. Musk has asked for Tesla employees to test what the company has billed as full self-driving capability and is dangling $13,000 in savings to entice them to help.
Musk, 47, announced almost two years ago that all of the company’s cars would start being offered with the hardware necessary for full self-driving, with only testing and regulatory approvals standing in the way. A falling-out followed with two key partners -- Mobileye NV and Nvidia Corp. -- and Tesla has yet to enable customers to actually activate the full self-driving capability they’ve paid thousands of dollars for.