Earlier this summer, Kroger, America’s largest supermarket retailer, and Nuro, maker of the world’s first driverless delivery vehicle, announced a partnership to begin testing grocery delivery using Nuro’s robots. Through the new self-driving delivery vehicles, customers will receive their groceries at their curb – safely and quickly.

Where: Fry’s Food Stores (single location): 7770 East McDowell Road, Scottsdale, AZ 85257

When: Customers can place delivery orders starting Thursday, August 16

How: Customers shop via frysfood.com or the Fry’s Food Stores mobile app and place their order based on slot availability

What: Grocery orders can be scheduled for same-day or next-day delivery by Nuro’s fleet of self-driving vehicles

Price: $5.95 flat fee; no minimum order

Nuro will begin the pilot using its self-driving Toyota Prius fleet and will introduce its custom R1 driverless vehicle this fall.

Source: Kroger

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a cease and desist letter to the company selling a product called the Autopilot Buddy. Marketed as a ‘Tesla autopilot nag reduction device,’ its primary function is to disable a safety feature in Tesla vehicles that monitors the driver’s hands on the steering wheel and warns the driver when hands are not detected. Aftermarket devices, such as Autopilot Buddy, are motor vehicle equipment regulated by NHTSA.

“A product intended to circumvent motor vehicle safety and driver attentiveness is unacceptable,” said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Heidi King. “By preventing the safety system from warning the driver to return their hands to the wheel, this product disables an important safeguard, and could put customers and other road users at risk.”

The letter directs the company to respond by June 29, 2018, and to certify to NHTSA that all U.S. marketing, sales, and distribution of the Autopilot Buddy has ended.

Source: NHTSA

The NTSB also determined the operational design of the Tesla’s vehicle automation permitted the car driver’s overreliance on the automation, noting its design allowed prolonged disengagement from the driving task and enabled the driver to use it in ways inconsistent with manufacturer guidance and warnings.

As a result of its investigation the NTSB issued seven new safety recommendations and reiterated two previously issued safety recommendations.

“While automation in highway transportation has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives, until that potential is fully realized, people still need to safely drive their vehicles,” said NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt III. “Smart people around the world are hard at work to automate driving, but systems available to consumers today, like Tesla’s ‘Autopilot’ system, are designed to assist drivers with specific tasks in limited environments. These systems require the driver to pay attention all the time and to be able to take over immediately when something goes wrong. System safeguards, that should have prevented the Tesla’s driver from using the car’s automation system on certain roadways, were lacking and the combined effects of human error and the lack of sufficient system safeguards resulted in a fatal collision that should not have happened,” said Sumwalt. Findings in the NTSB’s report include:

• The Tesla’s automated vehicle control system was not designed to, and could not, identify the truck crossing the Tesla’s path or recognize the impending crash. Therefore, the system did not slow the car, the forward collision warning system did not provide an alert, and the automatic emergency braking did not activate.
• The Tesla driver’s pattern of use of the Autopilot system indicated an over-reliance on the automation and a lack of understanding of the system limitations.
• If automated vehicle control systems do not automatically restrict their own operation to conditions for which they were designed and are appropriate, the risk of driver misuse remains.
• The way in which the Tesla “Autopilot” system monitored and responded to the driver’s interaction with the steering wheel was not an effective method of ensuring driver engagement.
• Tesla made design changes to its “Autopilot” system following the crash. The change reduced the period of time before the “Autopilot” system issues a warning/alert when the driver’s hands are off the steering wheel. The change also added a preferred road constraint to the alert timing sequence.
• Fatigue, highway design and mechanical system failures were not factors in the crash. There was no evidence indicating the truck driver was distracted by cell phone use. While evidence revealed the Tesla driver was not attentive to the driving task, investigators could not determine from available evidence the reason for his inattention.
• Although the results of post-crash drug testing established that the truck driver had used marijuana before the crash, his level of impairment, if any, at the time of the crash could not be determined from the available evidence.

The NTSB issued a total of seven safety recommendations based upon its findings, with one recommendation issued to the US Department of Transportation, three to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, two to the manufacturers of vehicles equipped with Level 2 vehicle automation systems, and one each to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Global Automakers.

The safety recommendations address the need for: event data to be captured and available in standard formats on new vehicles equipped with automated vehicle control systems; manufacturers to incorporate system safeguards to limit the use of automated control systems to conditions for which they are designed and for there to be a method to verify those safeguards; development of applications to more effectively sense a driver’s level of engagement and alert when engagement is lacking,  and it called for manufacturers to report incidents, crashes, and exposure numbers involving vehicles equipped with automated vehicle control systems.

Sources: NTSB

Tesla has just released the latest version of Autopilot. Users can now experience Enhanced Autopilot features including Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, Autosteer, Auto Lane Change, Parallel + Perpendicular Autopark, and Summon. Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward + Side Collision Warning, and more advanced safety features are also active and standard.

All Tesla vehicles have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. And Tesla vehicles continue to improve with over-the-air software updates, introducing new features and improving existing functionality to make Tesla vehicles safer and more capable over time.

Source: Tesla

The future of individual mobility is faced with many challenges: Nearly 1.3 million traffic fatalities worldwide per year. Rising traffic levels cause emissions and air pollution, which have a negative impact on life expectancy. More than 1.2 billion people spend more than 50 minutes per day driving in their vehicle – but most of the time in traffic jams. In addition, society is ageing and the proportion of older people is growing among the drivers.

The technology company Continental faces these challenges and is working on solutions. “Automated driving will provide an important contribution to making life easier for the driver, and to creating a more efficient overall traffic flow, with fewer critical situations or accidents”, said Continental Chairman of the Executive Board Dr. Elmar Degenhart. Continental sees an evolutionary and revolutionary path. With the Cruising Chauffeur, Continental offers an autopilot for highway and secondary roads that supports the driver on longer distances and allows the driver to relax during daily commute. There is also an increasing degree of automation at lower speeds when it comes to parking. From assisted, remote, garage, trained – up to valet parking, new functions will take over the stressful parking from the driver. Searching for a parking place will be a thing of the past and parking space will be used more efficient. With Self-Driving Cars (robo taxis) – that are expected to represent a significant market share of worldwide individual mobility in 2030 – the technology company is also concentrating on new forms of future urban mobility.

Automation on highways – Relaxed and stress-free driving

Long drives on the highway become more relaxing with the Cruising Chauffeur. Once activated, the vehicle takes over from the driver and cruises along the highway adjusting its speed to traffic conditions and regulations. The vehicle stays safely in the lane. The driver does not have to take over again until exiting the highway, which the vehicle announces ahead of time.

Automation in the low speed range: The vehicle parks itself

Different automated parking functions, such as Trained Parking, let any driver easily cope with any parking space. Upon request, the function records and stores the sequence of a parking procedure. When the procedure is to be repeated, the driver drives the vehicle near where the recording began and, at the touch of a button, the vehicle independently performs the previously learned parking procedure.

Automation in urban area: Driverless mobility with robo taxis

Continental has built a demo vehicle to enable driverless mobility, especially in cities. The vehicle, named CUbE (Continental Urban mobility Experience) will start its trials at Continental’s Frankfurt location. Solutions for driverless robo taxis are developed cross-divisional. The company has therefore access to an almost complete product portfolio of its own sensors, actuators, control units and communication and networking technology.

Source: Continental

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced at a press briefing that Tesla was not to blame for the fatal accident involving a 2015 Model S. The investigation has now been closed.

In May last year Joshua Brown was driving his Tesla on a highway at 74mph with Autopilot engaged, when a truck turned across his path. The car did not brake and passed under the truck, hitting the trailer with the windshield and continuing off the road, through two fences, finally stopping when it hit a power pole.

The agency found no evidence of a defect in either Autopilot or the autonomous emergency braking system and has therefore said that no recall is necessary.

NHTSA’s report states, “A safety-related defect trend has not been identified at this time and further examination of this issue does not appear to be warranted. Accordingly, this investigation is closed. The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that no safety-related defect exists. The agency will monitor the issue and reserves the right to take future action if warranted by the circumstances.”

It also came to light during the investigation that the crash rate of Tesla cars dropped by approximately 40% after Autosteer became available. This is firm validation of the potential safety benefits of ADAS.

In response to the findings Elon Musk wrote, “At Tesla, the safety of our customers comes first, and we appreciate the thoroughness of NHTSA’s report and its conclusion.”

The report can be seen in full here.

Adam Jefferson

Tesla has announced the arrival of yet another key member of staff from Apple: Chris Lattner. Responsible for creating Apple’s Swift programming language for building apps on Apple platforms, Lattner is to be appointed Vice President of Autopilot Software. His appointment comes in rapid succession to last month’s announcement that Apple’s senior director of product design, Matt Casebolt, has become senior director of engineering for closures and mechanisms.

The appointment raises the obvious question over which area of business Lattner is going to be driving. The two most likely are further development of Autopilot or a new connected car infotainment platform to compete with CarPlay and Android Auto. Tesla’s Autopilot software suite has always very much focused on autonomous driving, but this latest move could herald an expansion into a full mobile platform. Google N in particular is moving fast, and with the latest technologies presented at CES such as AI, virtual displays, speech recognition and personal assistants they may well be employing Lattner to stay ahead of the infotainment competition.

Adam Jefferson

Elon Musk has released two videos previewing a journey in a self-driving car and showing full level 4 autonomy. They demonstrate very effectively just what Autopilot is capable of today, albeit in a relatively controlled environment.

Both videos can be watched below:

Longer version of self-driving demo with Paint It Black soundtrack https://t.co/YuUmyEaCgR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 19 November 2016

Tesla self-driving AI with the Benny Hill option package https://t.co/gJAwzys7vV

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 19 November 2016

AdasWorks, the leader in AI-powered motion, today announced the company has changed its name to AImotive, effective immediately. AImotive delivers a full stack technology solution and the most powerful Artificial Intelligence software for the automotive industry, designed to provide self-driving vehicles better safety, improved comfort and increased productivity. The new company name reflects the broader vision of AImotive to bring global accessibility to self-driving vehicles, faster and safer than any other company in the world. The AImotive product suite delivers the robust technology required to operate self-driving vehicles in all conditions, and adapts in real-time to different driving styles and cultures. In addition to the name change, AImotive also announced its expansion into the U.S. market with the opening of a new office in Mountain View, California.

“AImotive has experienced phenomenal growth since our launch in 2015, growing from 15 engineers to more than 120 researchers and developers, including 16 PhDs,” said Laszlo Kishonti, CEO and founder of AImotive. “Our team of AI and machine learning experts approach the driving experience from a global perspective, and recognize the need to create a quality experience across diverse climates, driving styles and cultures. Our new name, AImotive, allows us to better highlight the unique capabilities we bring to autonomous driving, specifically a more affordable, accessible self-driving solution capable of powering L5 vehicles safely in any condition.”

AImotive offers the only L5 architecture capable of robust scalability across the global market, utilizing cameras as the primary sensors for greater affordability and accessibility. Unlike other solutions on the market, AImotive’s full stack software does not require a mandatory chip, and it uses the power of artificial intelligence to “see” fine detail and predict behavior, making it easier to manage common driving concerns such as poor visibility and adverse conditions. AImotive’s training technique is also scalable with a real-time simulator tool that trains the AI for a wide variety of traffic scenarios and weather conditions.

The World’s First AI Ecosystem for Autonomous Driving with a Customizable Software Framework

AImotive provides a full spectrum of automated driving functionality, enabling OEMs to move faster and more efficiently into fully autonomous car production. The AImotive suite of products includes:

• aiDrive: A full technology stack comprised of a Recognition Engine, Location Engine, Motion Engine and Control Engine. Recognition Engine is a continuously learning engine that combines and analyses sensor data with AImotive’s pixel-precise segmentation tool to recognize up to 100 different object classes such as pedestrians, bicycles, animals, buildings and obstacles. Location Engine provides a globally-scalable solution for precise self-localization of the vehicle by not requiring HD maps for precise positioning but using 3D landmark point data on top of conventional GPS positioning. Motion Engine enables real-time tracking of moving objects, predicting future speed, location and behavior, allowing for optimal routing of the car even in emergency situations. Control Engine is the execution component that manages acceleration, braking, steering, gear shifting, etc. as well as auxiliary functions such as turn signals, headlights and the car horn.
• aiKit: Incorporates a complete ecosystem of tools that accelerate the training of the AI by enabling faster data collection and annotation, complete testing with real-time simulation of various driving conditions and providing validated over-the-air updates for maximum travel safety.
• aiWare: Performance-efficient hardware design for automotive embedded solutions, offering low power consumption, high bandwidth and low latency Neural Network (NN) computation. While the goal of aiWare is to help bring truly efficient AI hardware to the market quicker, aiDrive itself is designed to be processor agnostic, allowing for seamless integration with GPU, FPGA or embedded technology based systems.

Launched in 2015, Aimotive has raised $10.5 million USD in seed and Series A funding to date, from investors Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Nvidia, Inventure Oy, Draper Associates, Day One Capital Fund Management and Tamares.

Source: AImotive

Update: Another source at Tesla says that the new Inifibox is not for the Autopilot program, but another source says that the new Autopilot is increasing Tesla’s need for data storage

Tesla’s next generation Autopilot/self-driving hardware suite has a lot more sensors gathering data than its previous generation. And with now ~25,000 new vehicles per quarter contributing to its growing fleet and gathering even more data, the company needs a solid data storage infrastructure to support its fleet learning capability.

In an effort to do just that, Electrek has learned that Tesla recently invested in a new state-of-the-art data storage system to support its new Autopilot program and the significant amount data expected to be collected through it.

Companies who acquire, store and analyze the most data, achieve the greatest competitive advantage. That’s actually the tagline of INFINIDAT, a data storage company and Tesla’s latest supplier, and it’s a statement generally accepted as a truth in the world of big data.

Tesla is certainly betting on it. The automaker has an aggressive timeline to bring self-driving vehicles to market, ~2018 vs ~2020 for most competitors, and the fact that it already collected hundreds of millions of miles of data through its first generation Autopilot program is seen as an important factor in Tesla’s confidence in being the first to market.

Its next generation hardware suite with 8 cameras, 1 radar, and 360 ultrasonics, is a significant step up and more vision based than the previous system, but Sterling Anderson, Director of Autopilot Programs at Tesla, confirmed that the data from the first program is still useful.

Tesla uses the data collected through the sensors of all the cars in its fleet to crowdsource high-precision maps of the driving environment and feed them back to vehicles in “map tile” when in the right area. The vehicles can then more easily navigate the environment while crosschecking with real-time data with the sensors and onboard processing power.

In order to store and analyze its growing fleet data, a source familiar with the transaction told Electrek that Tesla recently bought a new InfiniBox system (pictured above) from INFINIDAT. The company founded by Moshe Yanai, the inventor of EMC’s Symmetrix and IBM’s XIV storage systems, describes the InfiniBox:

InfiniBox, high-performance enterprise data storage, eliminates performance, availability and scalability issues to accelerate critical business applications. Based upon a fully abstracted set of software-driven storage functions layered on top of industry standard hardware, INFINIDAT delivers a fast, highly available, and easy-to-deploy storage system.

The source says that Tesla bought a single box, which starts at a minimum capacity of 2 petabytes of data and cost on average $1 million USD. The system is being marketed for applications in need of top reliability, like fleet-learning systems, and it features triple-redundant power and data paths, as well as triple redundant hardware, which enables 99.99999% uptime or less than 3 seconds of downtime per year, according to the company.

We asked Tesla for a comment and to confirm the new system, but the company didn’t respond to our inquiry. We will update if it changes.

The system is also energy efficient, which might not seem like a big deal since it’s not in the car making a dent on its efficiency and range, but big data has become so important that data centres now represent about 3% of global electricity consumption, which makes companies investing in new hardware more cautious about their decisions.

Tesla’s new InfiniBox could be put to use rather quickly as the automaker could deliver as many as ~15,000 vehicles with the new Autopilot/self-driving hardware suite by the end of the year and start feeding Tesla’s new data storage system. With Tesla’s production set to scale by 10x over the coming years and its data gathering/car also scaling, this is likely the tip of the big data iceberg.

Source: Electrek

A driverless flying taxi developed by aerospace giant Airbus has taken one step closer to reality with the awarding of a testing contract.

Leading the effort is A3, Airbus’s innovation division located in Silicon Valley. To bring testing to reality, U.S. technology and defense firms, MTSI and SOAR Oregon have been jointly awarded the Flight Test and Range contract.

In a press release Thursday, MTSI said the contract covers the prototype “Alpha phase”. “[This] seeks to identify and resolve major technical and certification risks, culminating in a flight demonstration at the end of 2017. A3’s mission is to disrupt Airbus Group and the rest of the aerospace industry,” the statement reads.

In August, Airbus released an article claiming the project was making good progress. “Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there,” explained Airbus project executive Rodin Lyasoff in the company’s online magazine.

Airbus believes the global demand for the “flying cars” will run in to millions of vehicles and that demand will help reduce development costs. “In as little as 10 years, we could have products on the market that revolutionize urban travel for millions of people,” said Lyasoff.

Lyasoff added that one major challenge would be to secure reliable technology to ensure the “autonomous taxis” can sense and avoid other objects. And the futuristic project has public backing from Airbus chief executive Tom Enders. “I’m no big fan of Star Wars, but it’s not crazy to imagine that one day our big cities will have flying cars making their way along roads in the sky,” he said in the article. “In a not too distant future, we’ll use our smartphones to book a fully automated flying taxi that will land outside our front door – without any pilot.”

The $8,000 price covers the software to enable a new hardware option, called Full Self-Driving Capability, which will cost $10,000 if purchased separately from the vehicle.

The autonomous-driving software still needs to be validated, and regulators must approve it, the company said.

Several companies are racing to develop fully self-driving cars, and some are betting that ride-hailing services will be the first commercial use of autonomous vehicles. Tesla’s price for autonomous driving activation sets a benchmark for car manufacturers that aim to market self-driving cars including BMW AG, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Uber are also testing self-driving cars on public roads.

“This is the first time somebody has put a price—a consumer price—toward what that feature set might cost,” Stephanie Brinley, an industry analyst with IHS Markit, said. “It sets a level of expectations.”

The description of Full Self-Driving Capability confirms Tesla is planning to launch a ride-sharing business. Its website noted that “using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing or ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year.”

Tesla didn’t say how it plans to limit its self-driving vehicles to its own ride-hailing network. However, its statement to potential customers highlights a shift in the ride-share industry as Uber seeks to replace car ownership with on-demand transportation, and it underscores the potential benefit in a ride-hail company developing its own autonomous cars.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has asked Tesla to stop advertising its electric vehicles as having an Autopilot function as this might suggest drivers’ attention is not needed, his ministry said on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, confirming a report in the daily Bild am Sonntag (BamS), said the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) had written to Tesla to make the request.

“It can be confirmed that a letter to Tesla exists with the request to no longer use the misleading term Autopilot for the driver assistance system of the car,” she said in a written response to a Reuters’ query.

A Tesla spokeswoman said the Autopilot term, describing a system operating in conjunction with a human driver, had been used in aerospace for decades, and that the company had always made it clear to customers that the assistance system required drivers to pay attention at all times.

“Just as in an airplane, when used properly, Autopilot reduces driver workload and provides an added layer of safety when compared to purely manual driving,” she said.

On Friday the KBA – which reports to Dobrindt – wrote to owners of Tesla cars, warning them that their vehicles could not be operated without their constant attention and that under traffic regulations they must remain alert.

According to the BamS report, the KBA letter to Tesla said: “In order to prevent misunderstanding and incorrect customers’ expectations, we demand that the misleading term Autopilot is no longer used in advertising the system.”

Tesla’s Autopilot has been the focus of intense scrutiny since a Tesla Model S driver was killed while using the technology in a May 7 collision with a truck in Florida.

Source: Reuters

In response to inquiries received this morning, Mobileye N.V. notes that the allegations recently attributed to a spokesperson for Tesla regarding Mobileye’s position in respect of Tesla internal computer visions efforts are incorrect and can be refuted by the facts.

It has long been Mobileye’s position that Tesla’s Autopilot should not be allowed to operate hands-free without proper and substantial technological restrictions and limitations.  In communications dating back to May 2015 between Mobileye Chairman and Tesla’s CEO, Mobileye expressed safety concerns regarding the use of Autopilot hands-free.  After a subsequent face to face meeting, Tesla’s CEO confirmed that activation of Autopilot would be “hands on.”  Despite this confirmation, Autopilot was rolled out in late 2015 with a hands-free activation mode.  Mobileye has made substantial efforts since then to take more control on how this project can be steered to a proper functional safety system.

Tesla’s response to the May 7 crash, wherein the company shifted blame to the camera, and later corrected and shifted blame to the radar, indicated to Mobileye that Mobileye’s relationship with Tesla could not continue.  Failing agreement on necessary changes in the relationship, Mobileye terminated its association with Tesla.  As for Tesla’s claim that Mobileye was threatened by Tesla’s internal computer vision efforts, the company has little knowledge of these efforts other than an awareness that Tesla had put together a small team.

In any event, it is Mobileye’s policy not to respond to rumors or other spurious claims in the press.  Mobileye has commented fully on its relationship with Tesla and will not provide further comment.  Mobileye’s deeply held view is that the long-term potential for vehicle automation to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities significantly is too important to risk consumer and regulatory confusion or to create an environment of mistrust that puts in jeopardy technological advances that can save lives.

Source: Mobileye

• Tesla Autopilot 8.0 uses radar, GPS to lower false alarms
• Update has sterner warning to drivers to hold steering wheel

A fresh version of Autopilot software that Tesla Motors Inc. unveiled Sunday emphasizes radar over cameras to guide semi-autonomous cars and potentially could have saved the life of a driver in May, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said.

Tesla has been under fire since Joshua Brown, a former Navy SEAL, was killed when his all-electric Tesla Model S sedan drove under a semi trailer that was crossing a Florida highway. There’s no evidence that either Brown or the Autopilot system noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a bright sky and the brakes were never applied.

The biggest change in Autopilot version 8.0 is a new starring role for radar, which since October 2014 has only been used to supplement camera sensors, Musk said in a blog post Sunday. The enhanced radar and a GPS database might have had a shot at saving Brown’s life, Musk said in response to a question on conference call with reporters.

“We believe it would have seen a large metal object across the road,” Musk said, referring to the tractor trailer. “Knowing that there is no overhead road sign there, it would have braked.”

Enhanced Radar
Palo Alto, California-based Tesla is upgrading the software, which automatically rolls out to customers over the airwaves, as it remains under scrutiny for the fatal May 7 crash. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the accident and safety advocates criticized Tesla for beta-testing autonomous-driving features with the public.
In another key development, the automatic-steering software has been designed to disengage if a driver ignores repeated warnings to keep hands safely on the steering wheel and to stay off until the driver parks the car, the blog stated.
“I am highly confident this will be a substantial improvement,” Musk told reporters.

Fleet Learning
Tesla said Autopilot version 8.0 should now recognize objects like trucks crossing the road, piles of junk metal — even “a UFO” — and would know enough not to hit it, even if the system can’t decipher exactly what it’s seeing. Instead of being supplemental to the camera, the blog post stated that radar alone “can be used as a primary control sensor.”
The upgrade includes automatic feedback from the cars to GPS systems, to catalog fixed items that the radar sees — such as a sign over a highway — to prevent future false alarms for other drivers.

Complacency Kills
Autopilot accidents are far more likely to occur among drivers who have been using the technology for a while, Musk said. “It’s not the neophytes, it’s the experts,” he said. “They get very comfortable with it and they repeatedly ignore the warnings.”
With the latest update, the technology that Tesla calls Autosteer will hold drivers more accountable for keeping their hands on the steering wheel. After repeated warnings, if owners do not hold the steering wheel, the car will apply hazard lights, slow down and come to a stop. The Autosteer system can’t be reengaged until the car has been parked.

Source: Bloomberg

Tesla removed a Chinese term for “self-driving” from its China website after a driver in Beijing who crashed in “autopilot” mode complained that the car maker overplayed the function’s capability and misled buyers.

The Tesla driver crashed earlier this month while on a Beijing commuter highway after the car failed to avoid a vehicle parked on the left side but partially in the roadway, damaging both cars but causing no injuries.

It was the first known such crash in China, although it follows a fatal accident in Florida earlier this year that put pressure on auto executives and regulators to tighten rules for automated driving.

A check of Tesla’s Chinese website on Sunday showed that the word “autopilot” had also been removed. But that term was subsequently reinstated on Monday.

“At Tesla we are continuously making improvements, including to translations,” a Tesla spokeswoman said on Sunday in an emailed statement to Reuters when asked about the removal of the terms “autopilot” and “self-driving.”

“We’ve been in the process of addressing any discrepancies across languages for many weeks. Timing had nothing to do with current events or articles.”

References to autopilot and the term “zidong jiashi,” which most literally translates as self-driving, although also means autopilot, were taken off the web page for the Model S sedan by late Sunday, according to a comparison with an archived version of the page.

Both terms previously appeared several times on the site.

Instead, a phrase that translates as ‘self-assisted driving’ is used.

Tesla China staff have additionally undergone training in response to the Aug. 2 crash to re-emphasize that employees must always keep two hands on the wheel when demonstrating the autopilot function, according to a Tesla employee who was not authorized to speak to the media.

last week Reuters reports that Tesla said it downloaded data from the Beijing car and confirmed it was in autopilot mode at the time of the crash, although the driver was not detected to have his hands on the wheel.

The spokeswoman for the U.S. automaker issued a statement saying that the system was not self-driving but merely assistive and that drivers were responsible for always maintaining control of the vehicle.

Other Tesla drivers interviewed by Reuters said China sales staff took their hands off the wheel while demonstrating the function. Under Chinese law, drivers are required to keep two hands on the wheel at all times.

The crash is another hiccup for Tesla in the Chinese auto market, the world’s largest, after it initially struggled with distribution and charging issues.

Various Chinese government ministries did not respond to requests for comment on the Tesla crash and self-driving policies.

Source: Reuters