Tesla confirmed in a new software update that its vehicles are now scanning rough roads like potholes to help prevent them from damaging the vehicle by adjusting the suspension. To achieve fully autonomous driving, a system must be able to handle a wide range of different situations — including varying weather and road conditions.
These conditions, like potholes, are sometimes difficult for human drivers to handle, and some believe it is impossible for an autonomous system to properly steer them. Tesla is using its large fleet of customers equipped with Autopilot hardware to capture data on these corner cases and teach its neural networks to handle them.
Back in 2020, company CEO Elon Musk said Tesla Autopilot would eventually be able to detect potholes and make mini-maps to remember them and help the car avoid them.
Two years later, Tesla Autopilot isn’t quite there yet, but people do see the first confirmation now – that Tesla’s fleet is looking for them or more “rough sections.”
In the new 2022.20 software update, the automaker wrote about a new feature of the “Tesla Adaptive Suspension” system in the release notes:
Tesla Adaptive Suspension will now adjust ride height for upcoming rough sections. Depending on the situation, this adjustment could happen at different locations as the vehicle downloads the rough road map data generated by the Tesla vehicle.
This is the first confirmation of a Tesla fleet scanning the road to assess its condition.
Right now, it’s not about Autopilot or the Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta navigating those rough sections, it’s about Tesla tuning the suspension for those conditions.
Tesla gave instructions on how to activate the feature:
The instrument cluster will continue to show when the suspension is raised for comfort. To enable this feature, tap Controls > Suspension > Adaptive Suspension Damping and select the Comfort or Auto setting.
Obviously, this feature is only available on Tesla vehicles with adaptive suspensions like the new Model S and Model X.
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