Elon Musk said the change is coming via Twitter.
We all know by now how active Tesla boss Elon Musk is on Twitter. He likes it so much he’s trying to buy it, after all. Not that that’s going particularly well for him. Regardless, Musk spends quite a lot of time there, often replying to Tesla owners who summon him in their tweets, like some sort of weird South African genie.
One owner did so, eliciting a response from the South African Genie himself. The owner was asking about raising the speed limits for the Autopilot system in his Tesla Vision-equipped Tesla Model 3. That’s the brand’s camera-only ADAS system. The software, widely known as Autopilot, is also availible across the Tesla range, on cars like the Tesla Model S and Model Y. Elon’s response? Read it for yourself:
“Coming soon.” Unfortunately, that’s all Musk had to say on the subject. The owner of the Model 3 had asked because he wanted to be able to go the speed limit, not exceed it. Large parts of the central United States are home to some of the country’s highest speed limits. There are whole stretches of eastern Colorado where the posted limit rarely dips below 75 mph.
Currently, Tesla says its new camera-only ADAS system, Tesla Vision, cuts off its autosteer function at 80 mph, though the brand’s website does not list an official top speed for other features, or if this is indeed the official cutoff. For now, we’re betting it is. It doesn’t matter how pro-Autopilot you are, most would give pause to having their car moving of its own free will near 100 mph.
With that said, it does make us wonder just how comfortable users would be with a higher top speed, or if the software should even be able to reach such speeds. Even now, 80 mph is pretty fast to have tech as controversial as Autopilot doing things for you. As Musk has yet to elaborate on the state of the increased limit, we don’t yet have a timeline for release.
Typically, Tesla will roll out such changes in an over-the-air update for owners. We’ll be keeping our eyes on the patch notes for these updates to see if the limit does get raised.
