Elon Musk’s dream to develop a self-driving car could take a hit. Musk has admitted that it is a hard problem to develop a safe self-driving car. Musk owns electric vehicle maker Tesla. Musk has repeatedly talked about a technology that drives a car without human intervention. His company already provides a self-driving option. Musk said that self-driving needs to solve a large part of real-world AI. The Tesla founder said that he didn’t expect self-driving technology to be so hard. Notably, Musk had earlier said that he was confident about a self-driving car with reliability this year. Tesla too recently said that Musk’s claim of fully self-driving technology is far from the engineering reality.
Tesla said that it is at just Level 2 technology. The technology refers to a semi-automated system. It requires regular supervision by a driver. The driver assistance system is called Autopilot. It needs a person behind the steering wheel. The Autopilot mode is basically aimed at enhancing the safety and convenience of the driver. When the Autopilot mode is turned on, it cuts the workload of the driver. People can also buy full self-driving assistance by paying an extra USD 10,000 to the company. It claims to provide full automatic driving capabilities. However, it is not fully automatic in true nature. It is yet to reach the level of autonomy. The full self-driving option allows the vehicle to change lanes, move in and out of a tight space, and the likes.
Tesla will have to achieve Level 5 autonomy to make Musk’s dream a reality. Level 5 allows cars to drive anywhere automatically. It doesn’t require any human intervention or supervision. The company said that it is far away from reaching that level by the end of this year. The Autopilot mode in Tesla vehicles has been blamed for several accidents. The company has recently launched a new driver monitoring system. The software is designed to monitor the driver by using a cabin-facing camera. Notably, Musk had earlier rejected the idea. But he agreed to use the cabin-facing camera for the driver monitoring system after criticism over rising accidents. The new system will make sure that drivers pay attention to the road when the Autopilot mode is turned on.
