Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed that his fully self-driving cars are almost ready and will be available by this year. However, an expert has criticized his claims saying that it is ‘impossible’.
In a recent interview with money management firm ARK Invest, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, “I think we will be feature complete — full self-driving — this year. Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up and take you all the way to your destination without an intervention, this year.”
He further stated that by next year the car would be so capable that a person can take a nap in the car being totally carefree, while the vehicle drives itself. “My guess as to when we would think it is safe for somebody to essentially fall asleep and wake up at their destination? Probably towards the end of next year.” Until then, driver would have to continue to monitor the car and be fully ready to take control if something goes wrong.
Musk has been known for making big claims and not accomplishing them by the deadline. However, in the interview he clearly said that he was certain of that and ‘that is not a question mark’, reported Futurism.
Soon after, criticism has already started pouring in and recently, an expert Karl Brauer told CNBC that he believes Musk is exaggerating Tesla’s progress towards its completely autonomous vehicles.
“I think the term ‘misled’ works here,” Brauer said. “I mean, there are so many variables out there. There are so many different ways that a car has to be able to deal with driving: weather, lighting, traffic, pedestrians, bicyclists.”
He acknowledged that Tesla has developed impressive semi-autonomous technology, but the thought of having fully autonomous vehicles by next year is taking things too far. “To say you’ll have all conditions solved in the next 12 to 18 months — nobody else is making that claim and there are some pretty big companies out there like Google who are doing this and have been doing this for a decade,” Brauer said.
“Elon’s got one of the best systems currently available in terms of semi-autonomous driving,” Brauer said. “But the concept of any car handling all the variables that exist on the road is still hard to fathom. Doing it in the next 12 to 18 months seems impossible.”