Elon Musk seems confident: next year, Tesla’s ‘Full Self Driving’ feature will be ready to enable autonomous driving. He does, however, note that the use will probably only be possible ‘in a few jurisdictions’.
The Tesla CEO made these statements during the Axel Springer Award ceremony in Germany. Musk says, according to the website Electrek that he is “extremely confident” that fully autonomous driving is safe enough next year to release the feature to Tesla drivers. He immediately made the comment that it will not be possible to drive autonomously everywhere next year. With this he mainly refers to Europe, where the legislature is generally more conservative, according to Musk. Musk also says that there is still some work to be done: according to him, “ billions of test kilometers ” are still needed to demonstrate to lawmakers that fully autonomous driving is safe.
Currently the Full Self DrivingTesla software is still in beta. If the next year does indeed come to the point where Tesla makes the software permanently available, FSD can be installed on cars that have the necessary computer on board. This is always the case with recent Teslas. The software package itself costs € 7,500 and can be installed via an over-the-air update if desired. Through these updates, Tesla is also gradually adding new functions to FSD. Musk previously emphasized that FSD beta testers must at all times keep their attention on the road and be ready to intervene where necessary. Time will tell if Musk’s goal is realistic.