They've been clearly working on AP 2.0 for a long time - this sort of hardware upgrade isn't something you roll out in a few weeks.
This capability was even pretty strongly hinted at for the Model 3.
Improving the self-driving capabilities has "almost certainly very little" to do with the high profile death caused by the use of the self-driving capabilities? Come on.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/tragic-loss
EDIT: no idea why the downvotes, I'm all for self driving cars, but pretty obviously they could be scared of PR issues and lawsuits.