Elon Musk said that Tesla will soon release the company’s new neural net computer. He claims it will be the ‘world’s most advanced computer for autonomous driving’. The new computer is expected to be in production in 6 months and can supposedly host a 500-2000% increase in operations per second.
Over 3 years in the making
The new computer with Tesla’s AI chip would be the pinnacle of a long project that they began almost 3 years ago as it anticipated the need for more computing power in its vehicles.
Tesla aims for the computer to enter production around the second quarter of 2019.
The new computer is being currently being introduced to new cars in production. The company will also have to produce computers for retrofits since there will be likely hundreds of thousands of cars eligible for the computer upgrade.
Tesla Computer Retrofits
Every owner who ordered the Full Self-Driving Capability Package will receive the upgrade. The package at the time of purchase cost between $3,000 – $5,000 depending on the year of purchase.
Enhanced Processing Speed of New Hardware
Musk has previously said the new hardware will be able to handle 2,000 frames per seconds with redundancy. He explained that this was achieved by building the new chip from the ground up to act as a ‘neural network accelerator’ based on the neural net that Telsa’s AI and vision team have been building.
Musk confirmed that it features about “400% increase in useful ops/sec due to enabling integrated GPU and better use of discrete GPU” The neural net computer upgrade should result in another 500% to 2,000% increase.
Tesla’s end goal is to power a computer vision neural net powerful enough to drive the car in any condition. While making some significant progress, Musk noted that the still have “a long way to go”.
With the missed production deadlines for the Tesla Model 3, its easily foreseeable that a self-driving Tesla may not be in production for another decade.
[via Electrek]
