Last weekend, Elon Musk traveled to Brazil to discuss with the authorities the possibility of connecting the Amazon regions with his Starlink connectivity service. Speaking to reporters, Musk said Tesla could have fully self-driving vehicles, meaning without the need for a driver or someone to monitor the car, within a year.
For Tesla’s number one, therefore, more or less by May next year, his cars will be able to have autonomous driving. It is not the first time that Musk has proposed a deadline for the arrival of the full functionalities of autonomous driving on his cars. In the past, for example, Musk had even promised that by the end of 2020 there would be over a million Tesla robotaxis on the roads. More recently, however, Tesla’s number one had stated that he aims to have 1 million people by the end of the year using the new Full Self Driving on the roads.
But as we know, Elon Musk has repeatedly had to scale back his ambitions on the arrival of this technology on his cars. Indeed, he has had to admit in the past that the development of autonomous driving is more complex than he thought.
Now, however, comes yet another new promise. Will he be able to respect her? We will only find out over the next few months. Sure, the development of the new Full Self Driving is progressing a lot but there is still a long way to go to get to truly autonomous driving.
In addition to the technical difficulties, there are also several regulatory problems to be solved as the rules for self-driving cars vary from country to country. Sure, Tesla is working well on the development of its platform but perhaps it would be better to provide further updates on how this work is progressing, rather than cyclically providing deadlines that are then not met.
However, the new AI Day 2022 will be held on August 19th. It is possible that during this event the development of autonomous driving will be discussed in more detail. There has also been talking of a new and more powerful chip for this platform for some time. We will see if more news emerges.