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Tesla Cars Gain Ability To Scan for Potholes and Adjust the Suspension to Road Conditions

Tesla released the 2022.20 update, bringing important safety and convenience to its fleet. Among the more interesting features is the ability to map the potholes on the road and automatically adjust the adaptive suspension for an upcoming rough road section.
Tesla cars gain ability to scan for potholes and adjust the suspension to road conditions 6 photos
Photo: notateslaapp.com
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With the new software update, Tesla vehicles will gain “psychic” abilities, automatically adjusting the adaptive suspension when it “senses” rough road conditions. Not only that, but every Tesla car will feed this information into the system so other Teslas would know when a rough patch of road is coming. This allows them to make the appropriate adjustments to the adaptive suspension.

This is not a novel idea, as Mercedes-Benz introduced it to the W222 S-Class in 2013. It was called “Magic Body Control” and worked by scanning the road using a stereo camera in the windshield. The info was then passed to the Active Body Control suspension to adjust for a smoother ride.

Tesla does that and more, as it can communicate with other Tesla vehicles and transmit the road conditions for others to use. This way, a Tesla would not have to react to the road conditions if other cars had already documented the potholes. Thanks to the adaptive suspension, it would already be prepared to dampen them properly.

Tesla Adaptive Suspension will now adjust ride height for an upcoming rough road section,” reads the release notes for the 2022.20 update, according to notateslaapp.com. “This adjustment may occur at various locations, subject to availability, as the vehicle downloads rough road map data generated by Tesla vehicles.”

As you can see, Tesla is making incremental improvements to its vehicles, even as the goal of full self-driving seems unachievable. Elon Musk promised a long time ago that Tesla Autopilot would detect potholes and remember them to help avoid them in the future.

This feature would allow an automated driving system to behave more like a human, driving around rough patches of road. We’re not there yet, but halfway in between, with the potholes in check and a car ready to weather them, although not steer around them just yet.

The same OTA update also brings a convenience feature by sounding a chime when the traffic light turns green, alerting the driver that it is time to move. More importantly, passive safety is improved thanks to the seatbelt enhancement update. This is said to better recognize dangerous situations and automatically adjust seatbelt pretensioner performance to mitigate a possible crash.
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About the author: Cristian Agatie
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After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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