Tesla starts offering owners free Autopilot trials

Tesla is offering owners a free trial of its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature.Beck Diefenbach / Reuters

• Tesla has started offering owners a free, 14-day trial of its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature, Electrek first reported.
• A Tesla representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company is rolling out the trial.
• Tesla says on its website that Autopilot will automatically download to vehicles that don’t have the feature shortly after they receive software update 2018.28.1 or later, at which point owners will be notified that their trial has begun.
• Owners will be able to decide whether or not they want to activate some Autopilot features during the trial or opt out entirely.
  

Tesla has started offering owners a free, 14-day trial of its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature, Electrek first reported.

A Tesla representative confirmed to Business Insider that the company is rolling out the trial. The company’s website features additional information about the trial, though it doesn’t include specific information about its start and end dates, saying only that owners who did not purchase Autopilot will receive the trial in the coming weeks.

Tesla says on its website that Autopilot will automatically download to vehicles that don’t have the feature shortly after they receive software update 2018.28.1 or later, at which point owners will be notified that their trial has begun. Owners will be able to decide whether or not they want to activate some Autopilot features during the trial or opt out entirely.

Last week, during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said the company will start rolling out “breakthrough” features to Autopilot in around four weeks. He said the update will “certainly include some significant advancements in autonomy.”

Stuart Bowers, Tesla’s vice president of engineering, also said during the earnings call that the update will allow Tesla vehicles to “automatically attempt to change lanes” and suggested it could help drivers transition to and from highways. Bowers called the update, “our on-ramp to off-ramp solution that’s going to automatically attempt to change lanes, understand what lane the car is in, understand the route the user wants to travel, and take that route for the user and ultimately hand back control to user.”

In its current iteration, Autopilot can keep a car in its lane, adjust its speed based on surrounding traffic, and park without driver assistance, among other features. Recent accidents involving the feature have raised questions about whether drivers place too much trust in it and fail to pay attention to the road. Tesla has repeatedly said Autopilot is meant to be used with an attentive driver whose hands are on the wheel, but the most visible accidents involving Autopilot have included reports of distracted drivers .

Tesla has received criticism for how it has promoted the feature. In May, Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Auto Safety sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to investigate the strategies the company has used to sell Autopilot.

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