Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla cars are already equipped with the hardware for self-driving. However, the new technology will not be rolled out yet since regulators have not come up with the road rules for this type of car.
LA Times reported that Elon Musk is confident that Tesla's self-driving cars are ready. He revealed that all the cars produced by the company, moving forward, will be equipped with the hardware that they need to transform into self-driving cars.
Musk added that they are now only waiting for the software and road rules to be ready. He also admitted that he wants to send a driverless car from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017.
"I feel pretty good about this goal, to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York," he said. "From home in LA to dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and having the car go and park itself - by the end of next year - without any single touch."
The company shared a video of a Tesla Model S driving itself around Silicon Valley. It went through highways and streets in the area and pulled into a Tesla parking lot to park itself.
"This is going to have a big impact forcing the hands of regulators," Mike Ramsey of market researcher Gartner said. "If [Tesla] is successful the others will be saying 'we are so far behind!' "
It was expected that self-driving cars would be ready for sale within three to five years but Tesla seems to be moving much ahead. Kelley Blue Book analyst Karl Brauer deemed the news as "a big upfront commitment to self-driving technology that other automakers may not be willing to make at this point."
According to BuzzFeed, Tesla car equipment includes eight cameras that give the cars 360 degrees of vision. In a conference call to reporters, CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company will provide software updates every two to three months, with "significant improvements in autonomous capability."
