Tesla’s Fully Autonomous Features Will Be Complete This Year, Musk Says

Tesla has missed key deadlines in the past, but that hasn’t stopped CEO Elon Musk from setting ambitious timelines for autonomous cars. Musk says that its full self-driving technology will be complete by the end of this year.

“I think we will be ‘feature-complete’ on full self-driving this year, meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention this year,” Musk said in an interview with ARK Invest. “I am certain of that. That is not a question mark.”

That doesn’t mean it will work 100 percent perfectly and require no observation, Musk says. So drivers will still need to monitor the technology. Eventually, it will be safe for occupants to fall asleep and wake up at their destination while the Tesla drives. Musk estimates this will happen around the end of 2020, although it could take regulators longer to permit such activity.

Since late 2016, all of Tesla’s new vehicles have featured the necessary hardware for full autonomous driving, the company claims, but the feature remains elusive. Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature was a $3,000 option before it quietly disappeared off its website. Now, Tesla’s new Autopilot AI computer is about to enter production, and those who originally purchased the option will get that for free. Musk says it’s a “2,000 percent” improvement over Tesla’s current tech. Late last year, Tesla introduced Navigate for Autopilot, which can guide a car from on-ramp to off-ramp.

GM says it will roll out the fully autonomous Cruise AV for ride-hailing fleets this year. Ford has a similar goal for 2021. Waymo launched a commercial self-driving service, but it is not available to the general public and is limited to the Metro Phoenix area for now.

Source: ARK Invest via Wired

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