Tesla tests autopilot feature with Model S drivers

Tesla is testing its latest autopilot feature with the electric car's upcoming semi-autonomous tech being tested by Model S drivers.

The technology includes the highway autosteer (which tackles lanes, passing and vehicle distance) as also automatic parallel parking.

The testers would identify the last remaining glitches in both the autopilot's behaviour and its interface that tend to show up only in the real world, though it is not clear when the cars would be in the market.

The technology is not likely to offer a peek into a future dominated by self-driving cars... at least, not yet. One would still need to flick the turn signal to pass cars (to indicate intent and absolve Tesla of liability), and the additions would be of little use when one was stuck in city traffic.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas seems to be extremely bullish on Tesla.

In a note Monday morning, Jonas raised the price target for Tesla to $465 from $280. The stock had opened at $243 on Monday morning before rising about 4 per cent in early trading. The key reason behind this was what he called "Tesla Mobility, an app-based, on-demand mobility service."

The race for autonomous driving was not new, with tech giants such as Apple and Google also joining in, but the report said Tesla was well positioned to a get large market share. Jonas said, "Tesla is uniquely positioned, in our view, to solve the biggest flaw in the auto industry, <4% utilization, via an app-based, on-demand mobility service."

"Given the pace of technological development both within Tesla and at rival technology and mobility companies, we would be surprised if Tesla did not share formalized business plans on shared mobility within the next 12 to 18 months... We view this business opportunity as potentially additive to Tesla's existing model of selling human-driven cars to private owners and see potential for this model to conceivably more than triple the company's potential revenues by 2029."

However, issues of hackers gaining control of vehicles remain. Last week researchers Kevin Mahaffey and Marc Rogers were able to hack into the Tesla Model S, an exploit said to be very difficult but not impossible. (See: Hacker duo demonstrate how they hacked into a Tesla Model S).