The mysterious Tesla “D” teased by CEO Elon Musk earlier this week could be a move towards autonomous driving. Speculation of the upstart electric car company’s next move is coming in fast and furious ahead of a press conference scheduled for October 9.
It didn’t take long after Musk revealed the “D” moniker on Twitter for internet sleuths to uncover a photo of a Tesla Model S P85D caught during testing. In this case, the D would appear to point to a dual motor, all wheel drive setup. With that reveal likely spoiled, the company still had another promised announcement for the 9th.
However, a new report by Bloomberg indicates that advanced lane-keeping and self-driving features are also in the works. Director of Global Communications Simon Sproule confirmed that the factory has already been building Model S cars with forward-facing cameras for the past month.
In July Sproule also confirmed, as reported by Motley Fool, that it had been working closely with Mobileye, an developer of autonomous driving technology. In the same piece, Musk also estimated that automated highway driving would be possible within a year’s time, from “entrance ramp to exit ramp.” Musk also said that radar sensors were too complex, favoring optical input like cameras.
Mainstream automakers such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Honda have developed autonomous driving prototypes already. Earlier this year another Silicon Valley giant, Google, also revealed a self-driving car.
Tesla shares jumped up 5 percent on the news of the new model.
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