Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc is “very close” to developing fully autonomous vehicles and could work out the basics of the technology as soon as this year, he said in a prerecorded video yesterday played during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.
Musk reiterated that the electric vehicle maker has solved most of the essential challenges toward achieving Level 5 (L5) autonomy, or a fully self-driven vehicle that needs no human behind the wheel.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive was reaffirming a goal he announced last year.
Photo: Reuters
“I’m confident that we will have the basic functionality of L5 autonomous driving this year,” Musk said. “There are no fundamental challenges.”
Tesla is racing against the likes of Alphabet Inc’s Waymo and General Motors Co’s Cruise to attain the pinnacle of the industry: the first 100 percent driverless vehicle.
The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the case for robot drivers — by making social distancing essential — and shuttered labs and factories where the technology is being refined.
Musk has argued that autonomous driving would be transformative for Tesla. At stake are billions of dollars in potential revenue and a global change in traffic systems.
BloombergNEF expects 27 million “robotaxis” on the road globally by 2040, while Cruise CEO Dan Ammann has claimed there would be a US$1 trillion addressable market in the US for autonomous ride-hailing.
Waymo — seen as a likely front-runner to pioneer a commercial service — has been valued at more than US$100 billion.
Tesla customers already use Autopilot on a regular basis, although the technology, which is only semiautomatic, has been linked in the past with accidents that the company has attributed to human error.
In the video, Musk said that original engineering on Tesla technology was an important facet of its Chinese operation, which is anchored by a massive Gigafactory plant in Shanghai.
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