By CRM Staff
Toronto, Ontario – February 20, 2019 – Tesla CEO Elon Musk is confident that the company’s self-driving system will be ready by the end of 2019.
“I think we will be feature complete, full self-driving, this year – meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without intervention, this year,” said Musk during a podcast interview with ARK Invest.
“I would say I am of certain of that. That is not a question mark.”
Musk, who has been hinting at the idea over the last couple months, has added more certainty to the claim, which is still contingent on regulatory approval.
Musk explained that the “full self-driving system” would require a human driver for oversight during its initial introduction.
“However, people sometimes will extrapolate that to mean now it works with 100 percent certainty, requires no observation, perfectly. This is not the case,” said Musk.
As far as a full self-driving system goes, Musk stated that Tesla drivers can expect to see this feature by the end of 2020.
“My guess as to when we would think it is safe for somebody to essentially fall asleep and wake up at their destination? Probably towards the end of next year. That is when I think it would be safe enough for that,” said Musk.
Musk believes Tesla holds an advantage over other manufacturers in the race to a self-driving system due to the amount of data the company collects from its fleet.
“The reason Tesla is making rapid progress is because we have vastly more data, and this is increasing exponentially,” said Musk.
All new upcoming self-driving features will be dependent on Tesla’s new Autopilot Hardware 3.0. The new advice will hit the market in early 2019 when Tesla is expected to release more advanced autonomous features on vehicles equipped with the new computer.
