Tesla is already planning to improve its latest Autopark feature so that it’s more usable in real-world situations.
Autopark to Accelerate
Tesla's Autopark feature allows the vehicle to park autonomously and is poised for a significant speed boost. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's Autopilot lead, confirmed on X that the Autopark feature will increase its parking speed in forthcoming software updates. This response came after enthusiastic feedback from users, including a post from Elluswamy about his daughter's fondness for the feature. While the feature is a fairly big step up from the previous Autopark offering, especially in terms of UI and empty spot detection, using it in a busy parking lot is not fun as it takes its sweet time to park. Speeding up the process would be a notable improvement.
It’ll be faster over the next few releases. Was tuned conservatively for the first release. - Ashok Elluswamy
The new Autopark is available in the U.S. and Canada on update 2024.2.11 and later. However, it’s currently limited to vehicles that don’t include ultrasonic sensors (USS). Similar to the Park Assist feature that is only available to USS-less vehicles, Tesla appears to want to gather more data before releasing the feature to additional vehicles.
My daughter loves it too, keeps making me do Autopark over and over. https://t.co/RDBrxZ9f3o
Elon Musk has signaled that Tesla's AI development will accelerate in improvements due to overcoming previous computational constraints in AI training. This development promises a future of rapid advancements in Tesla's autonomous driving features, leveraging AI's full potential to make driving safer, more efficient, and more enjoyable for Tesla owners.
The latest iteration of Autopark, built on the advanced neural networks powering FSD Supervised v12.3.3 is an example of the improvements we could expect. This update showcases the ability to detect parking spots more accurately and operate without ultrasonic sensors (USS), relying on Tesla's sophisticated vision-based system. The ease of initiating Autopark, with the car automatically suggesting nearby parking spots, marks a substantial usability improvement.
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The feature is now possible thanks to what Wes Morrill, Cybertruck’s lead engineering, points out is a huge rewrite of Tesla’s Trip Planner, which not only makes it much more accurate but will now allow users to choose their arrival charge percentage.
More Accurate Trip Planner
When you navigate to a destination, your Tesla will automatically calculate when, where, and how much you need to charge. While the process seems straightforward, Tesla deserves a lot of credit for creating a simple user experience because a lot goes into accurately determining this information.
Tesla has to calculate many moving pieces in order to accurately predict when and where you should stop. First, it needs to consider your driving efficiency and wind direction, terrain elevation, traffic, vehicle speed, and ambient temperature. It also needs to predict the best Superchargers to stop at, taking into account congestion and charger speed.
Now, according to Wes’ post this morning, Tesla has made backend improvements to the Trip Planner, thanks to a rewrite by several engineers, that bring even more accurate predictions to Trip Planner.
It sounds like these changes are mostly server-side, so thanks to their OTA connection, more accurate predictions should be available to all vehicles—no vehicle update is required.
Arrival State of Charge
Along with Tesla’s improvements to Trip Planner, Wes also stated that these improvements allow for a popular feature request — the ability to select your desired charge level at arrival.
Up until now, Tesla’s Trip Planner tried to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, which usually meant arriving with a low state of charge.
While this was fine if you have a charger at your destination, it’s not great if you don’t, or it could be even worse if there are no chargers nearby.
Max de Zegher said on X that he has heard the requests for a selectable arrival state of charge. Wes later clarified this by saying that these improvements to Tesla’s Trip Planner now allow for additional features to be added, such as “desired arrival charge.”
Actually trip planner got a huge rewrite on the back end. I had a great conversation with one of the engineers working on this over a morning run a few weeks back, it's pretty neat. The rewrite also unlocks additional features, like desired arrival charge.
Given that Max de Zegher’s comments came last night and Wes Morrill commented this morning, this feature request likely won’t arrive with the upcoming Holiday Update. Tesla actually hinted at such a feature being added in their last app update, so it does seem like they’ve already planned for it.
Although ‘Arrival State of Charge’ was on our wishlist for the Holiday Update, it looks like it may arrive soon after the holidays.
As Tesla update 2024.44.3 continues to roll out, we’re seeing more features in this update. While the update doesn’t include many new feature, it either improves existing features or rolls out a feature to new regions. Actually Smart Summon is rolling out to Europe, although with more strict restrictions. AutoPark is also rolling out to the UK and several other countries for the first time, and we’re now seeing improvements to Autopark arriving in North America and Europe.
As Tesla’s 2024.44.3 update continues to roll out, more features in the update are being revealed. While this update doesn’t introduce many entirely new features, it does refine existing features or expand the reach of others.
Notably, Actually Smart Summon is now rolling out in Europe, albeit with stricter regulations. Vision-based AutoPark is debuting in the UK and several other countries, while North America and Europe are receiving updates that further improve Autopark’s functionality.
Improvements to Autopark
As part of the same update, Tesla is making a batch of improvements to Autopark in Europe and North America. In the release notes, Tesla states that Autopark is receiving performance and visualization improvements. Unfortunately, Tesla doesn’t go into more detail here, but it sounds like these improvements could be the faster and more accurate Autopark enhancements Ashok Elluswamy talked about earlier this year.
Those improvements are expected to make Autopark more reliable, let it pick spots faster, move faster into them, and also shift between forward and reverse faster. The improvements would also let the vehicle park in tighter spots than before, with more accurate vision.
We’ll have to wait and see how this improved Autopark compares to the current version.
Your vehicle's Autopark performance and visualizatons have been improved.
Autopark in the UK and Other Countries
Countries in Europe that previously didn’t have access to Vision-Based Autopark, including the UK, will now have access to the new Autopark for the first time with update 2024.44.3 and later. This includes countries such as the UK, Ireland and Malaysia.
While these countries are receiving Autopark, it’s not clear whether it includes the Autopark improvements that other regions are receiving. The release notes don’t include the Autopark Improvements section in these countries, but that could be due to Tesla simplifying the release notes for these countries that are receiving Autopark for the first time.
With Autopark finally introduced in these regions, it’ll be the first time vehicles without ultrasonic sensors are capable of Autopark. Vision-Based Autopark is far more reliable, faster, and easier to use in more situations than the older USS-based solution.
