On an earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an extraordinary statement: all of Tesla’s vehicles today are capable of what he has called “full self-driving” on highways and most other controlled-access roads.
“Full self-driving capability is there,” Musk said matter-of-factly. He was referring to Tesla’s recently rolled out “Navigate on Autopilot” feature, which guides the car from “on-ramp to off-ramp” by suggesting and making lane changes, navigating highway interchanges, and proactively taking exits.
Well, maybe a couple of minor problems.
During the earnings call, Musk explained the difficulty in getting Autopilot to “99.999 percent” rate of success, citing traffic signals as particularly problematic. He added that the company would be ready to roll out “full self-driving” by the end of the year, depending on local regulatory approval
Pesky traffic signals. Once we figure out those! And ten thousand other things... .