Tesla announced to place limits on its Autopilot feature

Previously, Tesla Motors discontinued its feature of semi-autonomous driving in all of its Hong Kong vehicles. But now the car company is also considering limiting its car's Autosteer feature, its automatic lane-keeping technology.

According to Ecumenical News, Tesla incorporated its vehicle with incredible Autopilot feature via the Tesla Version 7.0 software update, last October. Autopilot system in Tesla vehicles comes up with a forward radar, a forward-looking camera, 12-range ultrasonic sensors and a digitally controlled braking system. This up to date features enables the company's vehicles to be driven semi-autonomously.

But the expectations of the new feature were not met smoothly, as the ground-breaking of the Tesla Autopilot faced much of the criticism of social media. The criticism came after the Tesla owners uploaded a footage on YouTube in which they were shown utilizing the feature by negligently removing hands from the steering.

In another video, the driver was shown sitting in the backseat carelessly with the Autopilot feature activated in his vehicle. The Autopilot feature also increases the speed of the Tesla vehicles, this rising the chances for automobile accidents.

CEO Elon Musk described the use of Tesla Autopilot as "people doing crazy things". The only choice left for the company is to disable the function, as mentioned by International Business Times.

There are approximately 100,000-tesla vehicles available on roads globally and no accident complaints have been received while using the feature. Moreover, the chances of accidents and serious injuries in Tesla cars is very much lower when compared to high-volume luxury automakers.

Tesla Motors Club subscriber RaceDeck, a member of the widely read Tesla Motors Forum claimed to be stopped by the traffic police and charged while using the car's lane-keeping function. He also admitted that he was speeding. He wrote, "When the police officer walked up he asked 'have you been drinking or texting. I pulled you over because you could not stay in your lane."

However, following the criticism, Elon Musk has announced to add limits as to when and how Autopilot could be used, as reported by Forbes.

The updated and limited Autopilot feature works only when the Model S is being driven under the speed limit. However, there are no speed restrictions on the operation of regular cruise control.

But the limitations to Autopilot "has ignited a firestorm of criticism from owners," according to Teslarati. It can further cause the Model S owners to threaten lawsuits or refusal to download the update.

Tesla Motors Club forum's member, with the handle Cyberax said, "If there's an update that removes a functionality that is useful for me, then I'm not going to install it. Moreover, I'll sue Tesla if they update my car without asking me. This screenshot [on the Teslarati website] with 45 mph restriction is now a line in the sand for me."

But the company has confirmed its announcement of the update feature despite the owner's unrest. Tesla also revealed to Autoblog that information regarding updates of Autopilot system will be released in upcoming weeks.