At a TED conference delivered the previous week, legendary innovator and visionary leader Elon Musk shone a light on his ambitious plan to reduce the on-road congestion by building a 3D network of underground tunnels. He not just talked about the project but also showed off a video rendering of his plans for the same.
In addition to talks about the Boring company, Musk also talked about the progress of his work at Tesla. He shared a teaser image for the company’s upcoming electric semi-truck, which is being expected to be a game changer for the electric automaker. The company expects to append its production by setting up three or four more Gigafactories across the globe. This aligns with his statement which he dispensed during Tesla’s shareholder’s meeting earlier this year.
But, that’s not all Musk talked about during his on-stage presence at the TED conference. While talking about Tesla, the conversation shifted gears and questions about self-driving vehicles — which are soon-to-become all the hype surfaced. Musk was questioned by the moderator about his opinion of when he thinks the populace would be able to just hop into an autonomous vehicle (surely without a steering wheel), input the directions, set an alarm, and take a nap until you reach the destination.
Musk answered that Tesla electric vehicles, which comes outfitted with eight camera and sensors, would be able to travel completely autonomously by the end of this year — November or December. But, the possibility of being able to just hop in and sleep while some Tesla Model takes you to your destination is still a couple years away. Talking about the same on stage at the TED conference, Musk said:
We’re still on track for being able to go cross-country from L.A (Los Angeles) to New York — fully autonomous by the end of the year. No controls touched during the entire journey.
He is very certain about the progress being made on that front and said that the treasure trove of data being collected through Tesla’s already on-road is further helping them build a robust infrastructure for its self-driving tech. And they plan on sticking to camera and radar sensors to build their tech instead of the popular LiDAR sensors. And this technology will enable the passengers to just rise and travel about without any hiccups, even when you change the route in the middle of the trip.
Now, once the electric vehicle maker achieves completely autonomy, the possibilities for the use of this technology are endless. They can be employed as ride-hailing taxis or driver-less semi-trucks carrying freight across the country. Though self-driving vehicles will swoop in and probably put several taxi drivers out of work, they’ll truly change the landscape of our current cities. The demos of such vehicles seen till date have been whimsical, but you can bet on Musk and his efforts at Tesla to launch autonomous vehicle by the end of 2018.
