"Eventually there won’t be wheels and pedals," says Musk of software update

Get ready for the age of the self-driving Tesla. Speaking at a press conference in the US today, Tesla boss Elon Musk announced a new software update to its Model S cars that enables autonomous driving.

Dubbed ‘Autopilot’, the software update – available to download and install in the US tonight, with Europe and Asia to follow – is said to “relieve drivers of the most boring and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel”.

It all began last year, when Tesla started equipping Model S models with hardware to permit autonomy: tech including a forward radar, 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors scanning an area 16 feet around the car, a forward looking camera, and an electronic brake.

Today’s software update then, version 7.0, dovetails with this hardware to allow Model S cars – some 60,000 models – and the upcoming Model X to steer within a lane, change lanes (with the tap of the indicator), and maintain ‘traffic aware’ cruise control.

It also takes control of the brakes, to help avoid potential front- and side-on collisions, as well as preventing the car from wandering off the road.

Musk was, however, keen to stress that this first update is just the ‘beta’ version. Truly driverless cars are, he said, still a ‘few years away’, with today’s update meaning ‘the driver is responsible for, and ultimately in control of, the car’.

“The software is not at a point where the driver can abdicate responsibility,” Musk added.

He said it was important for owners to “exercise caution at this early stage. But eventually, there won’t be wheels and pedals, you’ll tell the car your destination, and you’ll go there.”

The ‘beta’ software is said to work best in dense traffic or when there are clear markings on the road. “It’s a real boon in high traffic situations,” Musk said. “If you’re in slow-moving traffic, it works super well, almost to the point where you can take your hands off the wheel.”

He said the entire Tesla fleet would work to feed back data from autonomous driving to a central server: that information will be processed and fed back, the system learning to become better over time. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about with cars driving themselves,” Musk stated, much to Top Gear’s relief.

Over time, he added, the system would eventually surpass the driving capabilities of us mere mortals. “Long-term it will be way better than a person. Imagine a system that has eight cameras and radar and ultrasonics, and never gets tired, or hasn’t had anything to drink, or isn’t arguing with anyone in the car.”

Only owners with the hardware fitted will be able to access the one-off, $2,500 autonomous driving module, however, as the cost of retrofitting it to earlier Teslas “wouldn’t make any financial sense”. All Model S owners, however, will still receive the safety feature updates.

“This is going to be quite a profound experience,” he said. “We’ve been testing it for a year. It’s going to change people’s perception of the future quite radically.”

And what about that future? Musk reckons that very soon, we’ll see a fully autonomous Tesla on the road. “I’m confident that within three years the car will be able to take you from point-to-point, without you touching anything, and do so safely.”

Of course, the regulation involved in autonomous cars – who’s liable in an accident and so forth – is still under consideration.

But it’s coming. With Mercedes, Audi, BMW and now Tesla trialling self-driving technology, the dawn of the autonomous car is rising.