Tesla has been aiming to release a software update to bring its new vehicles with Autopilot 2.0 hardware to feature parity with its last generation Autopilot in “December 2016”. Tesla owners with the new Autopilot hardware are anxious to get the features they were promised and CEO Elon Musk has been emphasizing that the company has been pushing to respect the deadline.

With a day left in December, Musk now says that it could come out tomorrow if Tesla can just fix a bug. Unfortunately, Musk also confirmed that its software update v8.1 will be pushed to “late January”.

The update will only be for vehicles delivered since October 2016 with the ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ option.

Musk said on Twitter today that they found a bug “when booting from a subzero cold-soak”:

Resolving an Autopilot HW2 bug that shows up when booting from a subzero cold-soak. If that fix works, software will start uploading tmrw. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 31, 2016

He also added that the Autopilot update was holding up the update with the Easter Egg to unleash more power in the Tesla P100D Ludicrous.

@DragTimes Yes, but held up by Autopilot . It def works tho in shaving 0.1 sec off 0-60mph & 1/4 mile. If AP goes tmrw, then perf upgrade goes Thurs. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 31, 2016

That’s all good news for new Tesla owners with Autopilot 2.0 and P100D owners, but all other owners will have to wait a little longer to get the anticipated v8.1 update.

Following recent comments made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk about the timing of the upcoming version v8.1 software update for Tesla vehicles, some (including ourselves) mistakenly thought that it would incorporate the updated features of the new ‘Enhanced Autopilot’.

The confusion originated from an owner asking Musk about both v8.1 and the missing Autopilot features at the same time and Musk responding:

@edwardsanchez about three weeks and it will get rolled out incrementally in monthly releases — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2016

It looks like Tesla’s CEO was actually only responding to when Tesla will start pushing updates to bring the new vehicles to parity with the first generation Autopilot.

The update is expected to push UI improvements to the media center, which should affect every owner, and a “big” mobile update is expected around the same time as v8.1.

Musk added that v8.1 will come in “late January” with the Linux kernel upgrade, which was previously planned for December:

@vicentes @DragTimes Late Jan, along with Linux kernel upgrade — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 31, 2016

The Linux kernel upgrade is expected to enable a highly anticipated significant improvement to Tesla’s in-car internet browser.

According to the release notes of v8.0, it will also feature an update to the Autopilot new off-ramp feature:

“When at a highway exit, it will favor marked lane lines in the direction of vehicle indicator (8.0)* or in the direction suggested by the navigation system if active (8.1). This feature will be available initially in the US and later in all countries where lane markings are open for highway exits.”

Several more improvements are also expected and we will keep an eye out for more information.

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