Elon Musk is again promising fully autonomous driving later this year. The Tesla CEO has made similar predictions in the past, admitting he was wrong, but this time he feels closer than ever to achieving the goal.
Self-driving has long been one of the hottest topics in Tesla cars, but it seems that the dream is becoming more and more concrete. Elon Musk has been making several promises about cars being able to drive themselves since 2015, when self-driving software was still far from a reality. Initially, Musk thought that autonomous driving would be within easy reach and predicted “full autonomy” by 2018. In 2017, during a TED talk, Musk said that drivers could even sleep inside their moving cars within two years. The idea of abusing the FSD Beta program may have developed from these statements (some people may have misunderstood or overestimated the functionality of the FSD Beta and used it inappropriately).
In 2019, Elon Musk made his first prediction about autonomous driving later this year. However, he acknowledged that at first he would require human supervision. He reiterated the same thing in 2020 and 2021, when the FSD Beta program had already started with a select group of beta testers in the US. Since then, Musk has been more cautious in forecasting than he has been. However, during the Q1 2023 earnings conference in January, Musk was very confident that full autonomy would be possible this year.
The development of the FSD Beta has accelerated in 2023, and participants in the beta program say that the 11.4.4 version of the software has reached a very good level. This has returned Musk to optimism about the FSD’s prospects. During the opening ceremony of the 2023 World AI Conference in Shanghai, Musk said Tesla is very close to achieving full autonomous driving without human supervision. He relies on the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology to solve the problem of fully autonomous driving much faster than expected.
“It’s just speculation, but I think we’ll reach fully autonomous driving, maybe at a level four or five, by the end of the year,” Musk said. “I have been wrong in the past with this prediction, but I feel we are closer than ever.”
Elon Musk doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to forecasting, as he often tends to be overly optimistic. However, Tesla has achieved pretty much everything he promised, even if not always on time with Musk. Level 4 autonomy means that the car can drive itself without the need for human supervision under certain conditions, such as specific areas or weather conditions. Conversely, Level 5 can ride anywhere in any condition.
In the past, Musk has stated that the FSD Beta will exit beta with the next major release, but did not specify when this will happen. The FSD Beta V12 will be an end-to-end artificial intelligence system, where AI will take care of everything from images to steering wheel, brake and accelerator control, resulting in significantly improved driving performance and safety. If Tesla releases the V12 version this year, it will be the version that has reached the fastest development, considering that the V11 was launched in late 2022. Usually, major versions of the FSD Beta take one to two years to be released. fully developed.