A lot of complaints came from several owners of Tesla in Twitter about the placement of the white flashing alert on the luxury sedan and SUV’s driver’s console. So in a recent update on Twitter, Elon Musk stated that Tesla would include a new feature that will lessen the Autopilot alerts displayed in the instrument cluster for the Model S and Model X drivers. The warning alert beeps when the car detects that the drivers have not placed their hands on the steering wheel for a period of time. Along with this, Tesla will also add a configuration that would allow drivers to lower the placement of the Autosteer alert.
When Tesla released v8.1 (2018.21.9), Tesla deliberately opted for increasing the frequency of Autopilot nags which constantly reminds the drivers to place their hands on the steering wheels. But these alerts have been coming in as short as 15-20 seconds of the time gap. This has aggravated a number of Tesla drivers. There were also complaints about Autosteer’s warnings prompting drivers to “Hold the Steering Wheel”.
The alert does not disappear even if the drivers have placed their hands on the steering wheel. However, this was part of Tesla’s design. The “Hold Steering Wheel” sign will not ward off until the diver has put some slight force on the steering wheel. A recent software update now advises the drivers to “Apply light force to steering wheel”.
We’ve changed the ‘Hold Steering Wheel’ alert to now display as ‘Apply light force to steering wheel’ to better communicate how Autopilot detects your hands on the steering wheel, reducing the frequency of the alert displaying. As a reminder, Autosteer detects your hands by recognizing light resistance as the steering wheel turns, or from you manually turning the steering wheel very lightly. – Tesla
Apart from these, Tesla is also experimenting with other features such as a system that will detect the turn signals of other vehicles on the road. This is one of the features of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite. The feature is expected to roll out this August with the release of Software Version 9.
