During a video message at the opening of Shanghai’s annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), Tesla CEO Elon Musk touched upon the subject of autonomous driving and what we can expect from his company going forward.
Musk went on to say that Tesla is “very close” to achieving Level 5 autonomous driving technology, which essentially means that your Model 3/Y/S/X would be able to drive itself with zero input (or attention) from the driver.
“I’m extremely confident that Level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen, and I think will happen very quickly,” said Musk. “I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for Level 5 autonomy complete this year.”
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The California-based carmaker is also developing new heat-projection or cooling systems to enable more advanced computers in cars, said Musk.
Ultimately, industry insiders believe that it will take some time before the public can fully trust autonomous cars, especially after Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system has been linked to a number of crashes already, some of them fatal.
Then there’s also the issue of infrastructure, because it’s not so much how good the self-driving system is at reading the road or other traffic participants, but the status of the road itself – which is an issue in many countries around the globe (potholes, poor markings etc).
Meanwhile, Tesla has become the highest-valued carmaker in the world, as its shares hit record highs and its market cap actually overtook that of Toyota, as reported by Autonews Europe.
