What Tesla's self-driving car sees when it's driving down a road

Not too long ago we got our first glimpse of Tesla’s self-driving car package being demoed in the real world, from the driveway of a home to the Tesla office car park. While it looked impressive, considering that the self-driving package is being added to Tesla cars (including the Model 3) that are currently rolling out of the production line, it is not available to anyone else other than the engineering team. So even if you have the hardware package on your new Tesla, you will not be able to access the **self-driving capabilities** at the moment. But thanks to a new video, you can be confident of what it can do when it arrives as an update in the future. The new video uploaded by Tesla Motors, showcases what Tesla’s self-driving camera and software sees when it is navigating and ferrying a driver down the road. Unlike the previous video, this is not a sunny day with clear skies but fog ridden one, where visibility is compromised. Despite the fact that Musk’s self-driving package lacks the **essential LiDAR system** that manufacturers like Ford and others have been experimenting with, it does a pretty good job at detecting what matters. The new set of sensors includes 8 cameras, 12 updated sensors, and a radar with faster processing capabilities. In the video upload, we only have data coming from three cameras with the software scanning about to detect everything from cyclists to hikers to signboards, cars and more.

It appears to be doing a good job considering that the person sitting at the driver’s seat (sitting there for legal reasons) does not even bother to keep his hands close to the steering, resting them on his lap. From the video we can also tell what the self-driving software system looks for. The bar below acts like a legend for all the activity happening on screen. This includes indicators for motion flow, lane lines, road flow, in-path objects, road lights, objects, and road signs. Impressive as it is, Tesla’s self-driving car will be ready before mass manufacturers ready their self-driving offerings. It will also be cheaper as LiDAR tech used in other self-driving cars is pretty pricey.