It's A Man's World: Tesla's Elon Musk Says that Fully Autonomous Vehicles Are Still at Least 5 Year Away

Freitag, 19. September 2014

Tesla's Elon Musk Says that Fully Autonomous Vehicles Are Still at Least 5 Year Away

In addition, regulatory requirements may push rollouts even further into the future

While a sizable segment of our readership is composed of car nuts that enjoy driving and tinkering with cars, the vast majority of people in the U.S. simply want to use their cars for traveling from Point A to Point B. That means, driving to and from work, running errands to the grocery store, or possibly picking up the kids from soccer practice or piano recital.

Since many people drive out of necessity and not particularly for the “thrill”, it should be of no surprise that autonomous driving and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technology is quickly picking up steam. Tech companies (like Google), the U.S. Government, and auto manufacturers believe that autonomous technology will also help to drastically cut down on vehicular and pedestrian accidents, as it will take mistake-prone (and often distracted) humans out of the equation.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and his team of engineers are currently working to make autonomous driving a possibility in future Tesla EVs. However, the technology is still more than a few years away from being viable according to Musk, and it will take longer still to jump over regulatory hurdles.

^{President Barack Obama and Tesla Motors/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in 2010.}

“They will be a factor of 10 safer than a person [at the wheel] in a six-year time frame,” said Musk in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Tesla is going to do quite a bit of development itself.”

Tesla — and other companies — are working to develop better sensors, radar systems, cameras, and the accompanying software that can detect objects within the driving path of autonomous vehicles. The ability to correctly identify humans, other vehicles, objects that may be in the road, etc. are vital to making autonomous travel possible.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that while Tesla Motors has paved the way for bringing electric vehicle technology to the forefront with great performing and good-looking vehicles, Google has done the most thus far to develop and promote autonomous vehicles. The internet search giant has a vast fleet of autonomous Toyota Prius and Lexus RX 450h vehicles that have logged thousands of miles of driving in and around Mountain View, California. Google has even gone so far as to develop its own prototype autonomous vehicle, albeit one that can only hit 25 mph in its current state.

While consumers are likely looking forward to the days when they can spend their 45-minute commutes to work relaxing, texting away on their smartphones, or even finishing up a presentation on their laptops while their cars do all the work, the FBI is concerned that autonomous vehicles could be use for more nefarious tasks. A July report from the FBI suggests that autonomous vehicle could one day be used as rolling bomb platforms for terrorists looking wreak havoc in American cities.

Source: The Wall Street Journal