Tesla Autopilot In Africa

By Khalil Amar

Recently, people on the internet noticed a few videos of Teslas being driven or driving themselves in countries where Tesla is not selling directly yet, and it raised a question about features offered in North America, Europe, and China. For example, regarding Autopilot, are Teslas optimized and ready for countries outside of these main markets?

How does a Tesla autonomous car autosteer itself in countries outside of markets where the cars are sold directly to customers? Driving rules differ from one continent to another. Driving infrastructure and situations can be quite different. Has the car been programmed for essentially every situation? Has it been programmed to operate as well in Nigeria as in Germany?

Generally speaking, how does a Tesla and its Autopilot or Navigate-on-Autopilot features behave in countries that are at this moment considered as non-core markets?

Before we get back to these topics, let’s run through some background info on Tesla Autopilot and Tesla’s Full Self Driving goals.

Tesla Autopilot & Full Self Driving

Two years ago, Tesla demoed how a Model S or X could potentially drive you from home to work and park itself. Tesla wanted to show that the technology is there and the goal of delivering a fully autonomous car is on track.

More recently, Elon Musk stated in February 2019 on a podcast with Ark Invest hosts that it’ll reach Full Self Driving in 2019 and regulations will eventually follow.

“I think we will be ‘feature-complete’ on full self-driving this year, meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention, this year,” Elon said.

Tesla’s strategy hasn’t been like that of other self-driving vehicle developers and automakers. As they all bet on lidar technology, Tesla concluded that a series of sensors, cameras, and a very specific AI computer designed for self-driving can help to win the race in this field. Lidar is too expensive to be deployed on a large fleet and doesn’t help necessarily the AI in identifying all objects and (organic) obstacles in motion.

During “Tesla Autonomy Day,” held by Tesla on April 22nd, 2019, Elon and some team leaders behind the autonomous driving tech at Tesla explained the current capabilities of their new proprietary chip, which allows its embarked AI to push the limits of self-driving capabilities and thus make the car smarter and more valuable, potentially even an appreciating asset.

After the event, a YouTube channel called “Real Engineering” explored bit by bit the challenges of building a real self-driving car — as opposed to other builds where a car drives itself with lidar in limited circumstances or on a known path only.

The video from “Real Engineering” explores the differences between different streams of autonomous car technology. The video concludes that Tesla is far ahead in this field — not only because it remarkably mixed different affordable technologies to enable AI software be as autonomous as possible (increasingly like a real driver, but a really, really good one); but also because the software, and thus car, is capable of being autonomous outside of known areas. Let’s travel out of North Africa & Europe, and more specifically to a dense city like Casablanca in Morocco.

Tesla Autopilot in Casablanca, Morocco

As head of the Tesla community in Morocco, I wanted to share with Elon Musk and my Twitter followers some of the amazing results the work of Tesla’s Autopilot team has made possible. In particular, I posted an impressive video of a Model 3 driving itself in an urban area of Casablanca, Morocco.

The video shows a Model 3, delivered in early June 2019, that was in Autopilot mode and drove itself at low speed in organic, dense urban traffic. The Model 3 was running Tesla software version 2019.24.4.

The driver, Amine Kandil (@AmineKandil), was ready to take over, but he didn’t want to intervene/interrupt the Autopilot suite in action. He was trying to see how well the car has learnt to behave in dense traffic. When he finished recording the video, he shared his excitement about his car being able to follow traffic, avoid a driver that jumped out of his car, avoid cars that weren’t well parked and were blocking a lane, and more.

The Model 3 effectively guessed lane markings after it left a roundabout. Amine was amused and excited to see that his Model 3 had learnt to drive almost like a human driver. He laughed, stating that it felt like the Model 3 lived in Casablanca for a long period of time and had grown to know the specific traffic rules of Casablanca. (Note: We don’t know whether this Model 3 has the computer from Nvidia or the new Tesla chip, as it was manufactured in late Feb 2019.)

The Model 3 in this video has Autopilot on and has the Full Self-Driving package too. Autopilot was enabled with “Mad Max Mode” activated during the recording. Note, however, that Navigate on Autopilot doesn’t work in Morocco.

Teslas in Morocco, like any non-core market for Tesla, don’t necessarily have all tech features enabled by default. See this PDF from Tesla for more details on “grey”/non-core markets. That makes this video, a demonstration of the prowess of the autonomy engine that powers the Teslas, all the more impressive.

Being outside of Europe, unless the GSM chip is changed at a Tesla Service Center for a local GSM carrier, the internet doesn’t work on a Model S-X-3. The driver has to tether 4G internet from his smartphone in such a case for navigation and infotainment connectivity.

Since the car doesn’t have the required maps for the region, the navigation is not working anyway. Hence “Navigate on Autopilot” not being implemented. Google Maps is indeed displayed on the screen with the current location, but the turn-by-turn navigation doesn’t compute from point A to point B the path to get to the destination. Therefore, it also doesn’t compute the state of charge expected on arrival.

Being almost offline, the car relies on the series of sensors and cameras that are connected and calibrated after 50 km (or 30 miles) of driving. Being abroad from day one, this Model 3 learnt how to drive for the first time in a foreign country, which renders the whole situation a bit funny and interesting.

I have other videos of Autopilot back in September 2017:

Owners from the Tesla community in Morocco have stated that their car slows down if it sees a tight curve. This is even if it doesn’t have any mapping data available. So, it must be using some visual calculations and projections, easily visible on some of the videos from Youtuber Greentheonly.

https://twitter.com/tesla_truth/status/1154670822600011776

Autopilot works in Morocco seamlessly by following the lanes and changing lanes when there is no car close on the rear corners. A confirmation is required on highways after signaling the lane change, within 3 seconds or so.

Here’s another video with Autopilot on, this time in Tunisia.

Autopilot Differences between Africa & Europe/North America

Something that differs from Europe or North America is that Tesla vehicles in Morocco and other non-core markets don’t adjust to nor read speed limit signs. That is because such information is part of the GPS data, which is missing in non-core countries like Morocco. Owners have to adjust speed manually on the dial for Model 3 or on the Autopilot lever for the S & X.

Stopping at traffic lights is only possible in the USA for now, because of regulations. In Europe, over recent months, over-the-air (OTA) updates specific to Europe allowed a better Autopilot experience for owners driving under the v9 firmware version 2019.20.x and up. Driving with Navigate on Autopilot nowadays is the same in Europe and North America.

Some Tesla Reflections & Conclusions

From the recent technology advancements, we all can conclude that if a Tesla can drive, it is continuously adapting and learning, whether it can talk to the fleet continuously or only on occasions when it has internet access.

My Autopilot experience in Casablanca shows right autonomous driving is possible even in unmapped areas and countries where charging is still a challenge. Yes, there is no Supercharger network in Morocco yet. It will probably be there by 2020. Tesla is focusing more on making the charging network denser in countries where sales are important and where smog and pollution is a major problem.

But we’re in 2019, with Tesla’s achievements in battery technology, owners find it hard to explain range anxiety anymore, as there is none.

And if we focus on autonomous capabilities, the computer present across the Tesla fleet combined with the software that is deployed and that constantly receives over-the-air updates, makes every Tesla a fun car to drive. Every local Tesla community from all the different regions are hoping to see Tesla sales flourish in their country: India, Morocco, Tunisia, Brazil, etc… Click over to Twitter and see the responses to this tweet from Elon (E) as an example:

Demand is not a problem, as stated during the 2019 Q2 earnings call. Tesla is tightly following its planned roadmap and timeline.

Every Tesla car is shipped with an advanced computer that not only drives itself in challenging circumstances but is also considered a game console on wheels. Tesla, with Elon Musk as its CEO, shows that the company has only scratched the surface in terms of ownership experience, with games and full-self-driving features frequently being added.

Other automakers are definitely set up for a real challenge. Some are still battling against standards Tesla set in 2012.

About The Author: By day, Khalil Amar is a SysAdmin (tech geek) for a K–12 private school in Morocco. He is President of Tesla Club Morocco 24/7. He is ready to go the extra mile to help any EV owner visiting Morocco. He started to follow Tesla closely in 2013. At that time, Morocco already had its first Model S owner.

In 2015, Khalil decided to found Tesla Club Morocco and build a local community on social media to educate and advertise about Tesla. But, ultimately, his main goal was to gather local owners. The first meeting happened in 2016, the owners discussed self-funding a 50 kW fast charger and 22 kW Tesla wall connectors, mainly for hotels. The club lobbied to remove unjust taxes on EVs and continues to do more. For more, see:

twitter.com/teslaclubma
twitter.com/khalilamar