Tesla has started to push a new software update to increase the top speed limit of Autopilot for vehicles with \u2018Tesla Vision\u2019 to 85 mph.<\/p>\n
It is almost a year to the day that Tesla announced the transition to its \u201cTesla Vision\u201d Autopilot without radar<\/a>.<\/p>\n The idea was that it would transition to only using camera-based computer vision in its Autopilot system instead of using inputs from both cameras and radars.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think that more data would be better, but Tesla\u2019s idea is that the roads are designed for humans who operate them using a vision-based system with their natural neural nets in their brains. The automaker believes it best to try to replicate that purely with cameras and artificial neural nets and not let the data from the radar pollute that.<\/p>\n However, Tesla warned that the transition would result in limitations of some Autopilot features at first.<\/p>\n One of those limitations has been the top speed at which Autosteer, Autopilot\u2019s main feature that keeps a vehicle in its lane, was limited to 75 mph.<\/p>\n This was quickly raised to 80 mph, but it has stayed at that speed for a while and owners have been asking for Tesla to raise it. Regular Autopilot with radar would have a 90 mph top speed.<\/p>\n Now Tesla has started to increase the limit for vision-only vehicles to 85 mph, according to an update on Tesla\u2019s website (hat tip to Artem Russakovskii<\/a>):<\/p>\n \u201cAutosteer\u00a0will be limited to a maximum speed of 85 mph and a longer minimum following distance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s not quite at parity with pre-vision-only Autopilot, but it is getting closer in terms of the top speed.<\/p>\n Though there are other bigger problems that the vision-only system brought to Autopilot.<\/p>\n As we have previously reported, reports of phantom braking errors have soared since Tesla transitioned to vision-only Autopilot. <\/p>\n Back in November,\u00a0Electrek\u00a0<\/em>released a report called \u2018Tesla has a serious phantom braking problem in Autopilot.<\/a>\u2018<\/p>\n It highlighted a significant increase in Tesla owners reporting dangerous phantom braking events on Autopilot.<\/p>\n Phantom braking is a term used to describe when an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) or a self-driving system applies the brakes for no good reason.<\/p>\n The system can be falsely detecting an object on the road or anticipating a collision that won\u2019t actually happen and apply the brake to try to avoid it.<\/p>\n Obviously, phantom braking is something you want to avoid since it can create accidents if someone is following too closely behind you.<\/p>\n This issue is not new in Tesla\u2019s Autopilot, but our report focused on Tesla drivers noticing an obvious increase in instances based on anecdotal evidence, but it was also backed by a clear increase in complaints to the NHTSA.<\/p>\n We linked the start of the increase in phantom braking reports to the transition to Tesla Vision.<\/p>\n Our report made the rounds in a few other outlets, but it didn\u2019t really go mainstream until the Washington<\/em> Post<\/em> ended up picking the story up with\u00a0a very similar report<\/a>\u00a0that was more widely distributed earlier this year.<\/p>\n Since then, NHTSA announced an investigation of Autopilot\u2019s phantom braking problem<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n