Tesla has today announced the launch of two new safety features designed to help prevent drivers from inadvertently departing their lane. According to the company, inadvertent lane departure is one of the most common causes of accidents when Autopilot is not in use.
At Tesla, improving safety is our primary goal, even after a customer purchases their car. That’s why we’re introducing these features beginning today via a free over-the-air software update. This is just another way that we are helping to protect Tesla drivers and passengers, and others on the road, every day.
Lane Departure Avoidance
This new feature offers corrective steering to keep the drivers in their intended lane. This feature can be turned on or off, and works at speeds between 25 and 90 mph. When the feature is in use and a driver is departing a lane without their turn signal on, the car will also check to see whether a driver’s hands are on the wheel.
Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance
This feature has been designed to steer a Tesla vehicle back into the driving lane if our system detects that it is departing its lane and there could be a collision, or if the car is close to the edge of the road. It will be automatically enabled at the beginning of every drive but can be turned off for a single drive by going to the Autopilot Controls menu.
The new features are rolling out now to Model 3 owners and will gradually become available to all Tesla cars that were built after October 2016.
