Elon Musk Thinks Tesla Self-Driving Will Be Safe for Drivers to Be Asleep by the End of 2020

Ark Invest is a firm believer in Elon Musk, Tesla and the self-driving car future.

For many years, there were people who did not believe in Jeff Bezos and Amazon. Ark Invest believes Tesla will be proven out in a few years just as Amazon was.

Ark Invest interviewed Elon Musk for a podcast.

Tasha Keeney, Analyst at ARK Invest and Cathie Wood, Founder, CEO, and CIO at ARK Invest chat with Elon about the future of Tesla and autonomous driving.

Ark Invest believes that innovation is being undervalued in the markets.

Ark believes that as pricing of electric vehicles prices drop with cheaper batteries then there will be an increase from 1.3 million electric vehicle sales in 2018 to 26 million in 2023. This would be about one-third of the world’s total car sales. Elon agrees with this and only thinks it might happen in 2024.

Elon indicates that Tesla and electric cars are advancing exponentially. This is why it is difficult to forecast. Elon’s guess is 1.5 million cars in 2021 for Tesla. Elon guesses Tesla could make 3 million cars in 2023.

“The reason Tesla is making rapid progress is because we have vastly more data, and this is increasing exponentially.” — @elonmusk [0:17:01]

“No matter how you slice the data, it is unequivocal at this point that it’s safer to have autopilot on.” — @elonmusk [0:20:11]

Self-driving Cars

Tesla has by far the most self-driving car data. They have the most cars in self-driving car mode.

Elon Musk is certain that they will have feature complete self-driving car by the end of this year. There is still the need to improve the statistical reliability. However, the regulators will need to be convinced of the safety with data.

Elon Musk thinks the Tesla cars will be safe enough for the driver to go to sleep for the whole trip by the end of 2020.

17 thoughts on “Elon Musk Thinks Tesla Self-Driving Will Be Safe for Drivers to Be Asleep by the End of 2020”

  1. Did you assume that people currently get rid of cars when they stop working, as opposed to “it looks out of date and my friend Alice just got a new one and Mercedes is now offering 4% finance and…”

  2. 9 months ago, I did a spreadsheet for car production through to 2030. The projections in my spreadsheet are rather similar to Musk’s latest forecasts provided here. Musk has AEV progress as a bit faster than my projections.

    One important matter my spreadsheet shows is that peak world car production should occur by approximately 2022. An AEV should be good for at least a million miles so annual world car production rates for 2026 should drop to about 50 million or less because AEV cars will last for way more miles than ICE cars.

  3. My tesla could and does drive me from Phoenix to a little town about 100 miles away. It navigates to where I want to go and were I patient enough would take me the whole way without any input. As it stands I have to use the blinker to pass a slow car or truck. Highway travel is within current capabilities. City driving isn’t there yet.

  4. Once again, the socialist idiot-boy is spouting things that will not come to pass. He should focus on the build quality of his cars and focus on the upcoming competition, not lying to the public about vapor ware. So called self driving cars will not be viable for a long time to come. Too many variables.

  5. If people are unable to drive but fully autonomous cars are available, why should they be required to have any sort of license at all?

    Whereas they may be situations where a person without a license may be required to route the car around obstacles or unfamiliar terrain, possibly we should consider allowing any person over the age of, say, 7, to drive a car at up to 3 mph.

  6. I would hope that many states change the law as soon as safe, self-driving cars are feasible, for two reasons: (1) to encourage those most likely to drink and drive to choose an option that will be safer for both themselves and others; and (2) whereas Tesla will be the sole company to have such cars at first, to promote the more rapid adoption of electric cars.

    Of course they might want to require some sort of system to lock out drunken drivers from the controls before allowing this, so that a drunken passenger cannot override the automated system and cause an accident. Perhaps only have allow one override mode for drunken passengers or passengers without a drivers’ license: a full stop.

  7. I’ll say that I am skeptical of Mr Musk’s “you can take a nap” proclamation. It implies full driving and his hardware and software is nowhere near that.

    I’d love to be proven wrong but his track record isn’t that great. Have they taught Teslas to not hit parked fire trucks on the road shoulder yet?

  8. My guess is that in 10 years we will look back on this as extremely weak processing that we were reckless to put in control…not because of thousands of accidents, it will be much lower rates than humans…just that future hardware will be 1,000 faster and better able deal with the unusual…and near perfect. Accidents will be the other guy’s fault.

    I think the program could be tricked extremely easily, but mostly that would take intent. Maybe some other scenarios: Reflective gasoline semi trailers, spilled paint 2 feet from the real line. There is a quarter mile of that on a street near me. And it is 45 mph with no barrier, unlit and the lanes don’t line up going from the beginning of the intersection to the end of the intersection, you have to move about 5 feet. And there is a large parking lot that is also asphalt with no distinct driveway…it is all one big driveway next to the road. Believe it or not but that is on the same street. And if they were paving…no line. https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7320691,-117.0589448,39m/data=!3m1!1e3

    And there are all the scenarios where a road is closed or police/workmen are directing traffic. What if bums were pretending to direct traffic? Other times ordinary people are directing traffic because they are helping someone back out.

    Police or workmen can direct completely opposed to the road markings.

    You can’t make the car just obey anyone. Bums are going to be directing the car off cliffs.

  9. This is a symptom of overpaid cops. I live in a state with underpaid cops, and we can’t even get them to pull over the truly obvious DUIs.

  10. Step 1: make autonomous cars a thing.
    Step 2: crack down on old people’s licenses, start giving the the ones that can’t ACTUALLY drive licenses that only allow them to get around in autonomous cars.

  11. By my calculations that means by Spring of 2023 it will be legal to use. Courts/Legislatures do not work at anywhere near the speed of light … more like the speed of stupid in the vacuum of ideas.

  12. My state will get you for DD if you are asleep in the back of a legally parked car.
    Logic is not a barrier to the government getting more fine revenue.

  13. That would really depend on our state laws. But its possible we could see that change occur eventually. But I wouldnt expect it soon.

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