Tesla Parts Ways With Company That Provided Its Autopilot Chips

Last month we reported that a Tesla driver was killed while using the autopilot feature of the car. Now it seems that Tesla has decided to part ways with the company, Mobileye, that made the chip for its autopilot system. According to a report from Recode, they speculate that this means that Tesla is probably going to work on their own chips instead.

According to Mobileye CTO Ammon Sashua who revealed the information during the company’s second-quarter financial results, “We continue to support and maintain the current Tesla Autopilot product plans. This includes a significant upgrade of several functions that affect both the ability to respond to crash avoidance and to optimize auto-steering in the near term, without any hardware updates.”

He adds, “Nevertheless, in our view, moving toward more advanced autonomy is a paradigm shift both in terms of function complexity and the need to ensure an extremely high level of safety. There is much at stake here, to Mobileye’s reputation and to the industry at large. Mobileye believes that achieving this objective requires partnerships that go beyond the typical OEM / supplier relationship, such as our recently announced collaboration with BMW and Intel. Mobileye will continue to pursue similar such relationships.”

It is unclear as to who ended the relationship with whom, but Comma.ai CEO George Hotz speculates that it was most probably Tesla.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Transportation
Tags: Tesla