Tesla Offers New Solution To Curb ‘Range Anxiety’

When it comes to electric cars, one of the biggest consumer concerns is “range anxiety.” Tesla is addressing this issue in the upcoming release of a software update for its line of Model S electric vehicles that will automatically route a car through the company’s networks of supercharging stations.

Soon, Model S drivers will be able to use the new “Range Assurance” and “Trip Planner” features to simply “select a destination and Navigation will now automatically route through the appropriate superchargers if charging is needed” for a trip. Tesla co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, announced the new software is currently being tested in open beta by select Model S owners, and will be rolled out to all cars in approximately 10 days via Tesla’s Model S Software Update 6.2.

“Range is one of the main issues that people have with electric vehicles and this is what we hope we are emphatically addressing with this update,” said Musk. He continued by explaining that if a driver is about to drive too far away from a supercharger to make it back to one, the system will warn them. “This makes it effectively impossible for a driver to run out of range unintentionally,” Musk said. “The car will actually double check; you’ll have to say ‘Yes, I’m sure’ … twice.”

Although the Model S already estimates how much charge you have left on your battery, and also tells you how far you are from the nearest supercharger, this update conveniently connects those two points together and provides a warning to the driver before it’s too late.

Although the “range anxiety” solution was the main focus of Tesla’s announcement, the company’s 6.2 update also adds other important functionality, including:

• “Automatic Emergency Braking,” which will attempt to automatically stop your car when it detects that you’re about to hit something. This will be part of all future Tesla cars, and it will be added to all of its existing cars that were made after October of last year.
• A lane-changing assistant called “Blind Spot Warning.”
• “Valet mode,” which reduces the car’s performance as well as locking down the center console’s touchscreen to hide private data, allowing drivers to let others use their car without accessing their information.

Musk also talked about the next version of the software, Version 7, which will not only include a complete overhaul to how it looks, but will also feature auto-steering. He explained that the company is currently testing a route between San Francisco and Seattle and that almost the entire route can be completed without the driver ever touching the steering wheel.

Is it possible that autonomous vehicles could be coming to our roads even sooner than expected?

“The car is becoming more and more sensor aware,” explained Musk. “We are kind of waking up the car, making it more aware over time.” He said that this will become even more apparent when auto-steering and the major overhaul to Tesla’s vehicle user interface comes this summer. Although regulatory hurdles still need to be overcome, Musk insisted that a Tesla vehicle equipped with the company’s next big software update will be “technically capable of going from parking lot to parking lot” on a long-haul trip.

These announcements from Tesla are certainly engaging, but soon there may be a new competitor in the electric car space. Billionaire Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, which comprises more than 400 companies, has announced that he’s sponsoring a car in the Formula E racing series. The series is Grand-Prix style racing for electric cars, which speed through the course at over 150 miles per hour.

Now, he’s suggesting that he may take his interest in electric cars further.

“We have teams of people trying to work on electric cars,” said Branson. “You never know. You may well find Virgin competing with Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We’ll see what happens.”

Although creating a car business is a massive endeavor, considering the fact that Branson has made major marks in a vast number of sectors, from the music industry to the airline business, it’s not too hard to imagine him making a splash in the world of electric cars in the future. Tesla, be warned!