Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk recently made a prediction during an interview with Cathie Wood on the ARK Invest podcast. ARK Invest is a money management company that is also an investor in Tesla Motors.
Musk said that Tesla’s full self-driving feature is expected to become available by the end of 2019 and it will be completely automatic by the end of 2020 so drivers could even take a nap. But until then, drivers will have to continue monitoring the technology and take control of the wheel if something seems off.
Photo: Tesla
“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 intervention this year,” said Musk during the interview via Wired. “I am certain of that. That is not a question mark.”
The current Enhanced Autopilot feature costs $5,000 as an add-on for vehicles. That technology currently guides highway on-ramps and off-ramps, suggests and makes lane changes, takes exits, and navigates highway interchanges. So the technology still has a long way to go and Musk’s goal is very ambitious.
Talks about a full self-driving feature in Tesla vehicles began back in October 2016. The hardware in Tesla’s vehicles since then support full self-driving features. And once it is ready, it can be rolled out over the air with a software update.
And Musk said that Tesla’s Autopilot team, which handles highway driving is now working on handling intersections. The challenging part about traffic lights is picking the right one to focus on, which is not always clear even for people.
Musk also said that the annualized production rate for 2019 is expected to hit 500,000 vehicles. This is impressive considering eight years ago, the company did not manufacture any vehicles:
Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2019
Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2019
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