Visionary CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, believes his company is “vastly ahead of everyone” in the development of autonomous vehicles and predicts that his company will put a “full self-driving” car on the road no later than next year.
The race to develop an autonomous vehicle is a crowded field. Depending on your source of reference, there are estimated to be at least 46 corporations trying to develop self-driving vehicles.
According to one report, ten companies said to be leading the field are: GM, Waymo, Daimler-Bosch, Ford, Volkswagen group, BMW-Intel-FCA, Aptiv, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Volvo-Autoliv-Ericsson-Zenuity, Groupe PSA.
The report left out some of the people making the most noise in the field: Google, Tesla, Amazon and Apple. They also included Audi, Honda, Hyundai and several other companies that merit honorable mention. Many companies are partnering with a variety of other companies as investors.
However, despite this large field of heavy hitters in the world of automobiles, Elon Musk believes his company Tesla will win this race first.
Tesla’s website proclaims that all of its vehicles will have the capability of operating autonomously in the future.
Their website states: “All new Tesla cars have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.”
Tesla’s self-driving vehicles rely on eight cameras covering the full 360-degree view around the car, as well as, front-facing radar and short-range ultrasonic sensors.
The vehicles will also use a computer, which cost $5,000, but increases to $7,000 on installation and delivery. Once this computer is installed in the vehicle, it is able to get updates via the Internet.
Many experts believe a fully autonomous vehicle is still at least a decade away.
Critics have accused Musk’s prediction as “all hype” and a move to distract the public and shareholders from poor earnings that are expected to be reported this week.
