Econintersect: In May Tesla was reported by Bloomberg to be in talks with Google about collaboration on developing self-driving cars on a commercial scale. At that time Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, said he preferred “autopilot” rather than “self-driving” as a proper descriptor. It now seems that “self-driving” might be an appropriate description for how Tesla plans to proceed in developing a commercial driverless automobile.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Musk announced that Tesla would be going alone with an internal program to develop and sell a robot car that would handle 90% of driving functions for passengers. And Musk said that this would be done within three years and that the new car was “not speculation“. Musk said the program was entirely driven within Tesla and would not be using technology supplied by another company.
Musk told the Financial Times:
“My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars. It’s incredibly hard to get the last few per cent.”
So much for the idea of getting in your car in Chicago and sleeping overnight all the way to Vail for a couple of days of skiing.
Tesla has posted a job description on it’s website for an “Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Controls Engineer”.
In the meantime, GM has announced that it is taking dead aim on the successful Tesla Model S. GM says it will equal the 200 mile range of the Tesla vehicle and sell for half the price, around $30,000. If Tesla is successful it will not be in the same place that GM is aiming for by the time the big auto maker gets there.
Sources:
- Tesla CEO Talking With Google About ‘Autopilot’ Systems (Alan Ohnsman, Bloomberg, 07 May 2013)
- Tesla moves ahead from Google in race to build self-driving cars (Richard Waters and Henry Foy, Financial Times, 17 September 2013)
- Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Controls Engineer (Tesla website)
- GM planning car to rival Tesla’s Model S (David Weinberg, Marketplace, 17 September 2013)
