Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that he believes the company will upgrade its vehicles to fully self-driving in 2023.
Speaking via video link at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, the world’s richest person expressed his belief that Tesla was “closer to it than we ever have been”.
“In terms of where Tesla is at this stage, I think we are very close to achieving full self-driving without human supervision,” the billionaire said. “This is only speculation, but I think we’ll achieve full self-driving, maybe what you would call four or five, I think later this year.”
The numbers that Musk mentions refer to the six levels of autonomy that driverless cars can have, where zero is complete manual control and five requires no human interaction or attention at all. The levels in-between are what you’d call semi-autonomous.
Tesla’s vehicles enrolled in the Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta currently sit at level two, where they can steer, brake, and accelerate automatically with a qualified driver behind the wheel. Said driver is required to be fully engaged and capable of taking over at any time, and is responsible for any mistakes made.
It’s a big leap from where we are now to what Musk seems to be predicting in the six months left of the year, and it’s important to note that the billionaire has been overly bullish in his predictions before.
In 2015, he predicted self-driving cars would be here within two-to-three years and, in 2019, he stated his belief that those with the full self-driving option would be able to let their cars operate as autonomous robotaxis in 2020.
Other experts are more pessimistic about the timelines promoted by car markers.
“I’d say within the decade it’s gonna be on highways,” Ayoub Aouad, a senior business analyst at Insider said in 2020. “But, if we’re talking about being able to take your car wherever you want across the United States, being able to travel through New York City and sleep the whole time, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that.
“Probably several decades away from that.”
