A self-reliant EV? Tesla to have self-driving cars by end of 2016

By Nick Jaynes Published September 18, 2013

tesla to have self driving cars by end of 2016 model s silver on road — By the end of 2016 your Model S could drive itself. Image used with permission by copyright holder

Elon Musk is the king of one-upmanship. It seems that virtually whenever an automaker brags about a forthcoming technical breakthrough, Musk is compelled to take it one – or several – step further. And today is no different.

Just last week, Mercedes-Benz said it would have autonomous vehicles for sale by 2020, which is an ambitious claim by any standards. But in an interview with the Financial Times (by way of Automotive News), Tesla Founder and CEO, Elon Musk, said that his car firm would produce an autonomous car within the next three years.

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We would laugh at any other upstart automaker for making such an outlandish claim – but not Musk and not Tesla.

Musk says that the autonomous Tesla’s will allow the driver to turn over 90 percent of the driving duties to on an onboard computer. A fully autonomous Tesla, Musk said, would be a few years further down the line.

Both Mercedes-Benz and BMW have semi autonomous cars. BMW’s autonomous tech isn’t available in the U.S. but Mercedes offers partially autonomous driving systems on the new E-Class and the all-new S-Class.

Musk isn’t simply blowing smoke, either. Tesla has posted on its online jobs board a position for an advanced driver assistance systems controls engineer who will assist “Tesla’s effort to pioneer fully automated driving.”

It’s not just Google, Tesla, and Mercedes working on autonomous driving, plenty of other groups are trying to sort self-driving, too. Oxford University also has an inexpensive self-driving system it calls Robot Car that will pilot a car without driver input.

Musk isn’t just going to go out and buy autonomous tech. No, he insists Tesla will build its own distinctive system. Seems like the hard way to do it. But does Musk ever do anything the easy way?2

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Nick Jaynes is the Automotive Editor for Digital Trends. He developed a passion for writing about cars working his way…

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The UK’s Wayve brings its AI automated driving software to U.S. shores

wayve ai automated driving us driver assist2 1920x1152 1

It might seem that the autonomous driving trend is moving at full speed and on its own accord, especially if you live in California.Wayve, a UK startup that has received over $1 billion in funding, is now joining the crowded party by launching on-road testing of its AI learning system on the streets of San Francisco and the Bay Area.The announcement comes just weeks after Tesla unveiled its Robotaxi at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California. It was also in San Francisco that an accident last year forced General Motors’ robotaxi service Cruise to stop its operations. And it’s mostly in California that Waymo, the only functioning robotaxi service in the U.S., first deployed its fleet of self-driving cars. As part of its move, Wayve opened a new office in Silicon Valley to support its U.S. expansion and AI development. Similarly to Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD) software, the company says it’s using AI to provide automakers with a full range of driver assistance and automation features.“We are now testing our AI software in real-world environments across two continents,” said Alex Kendall, Wayve co-founder and CEO.The company has already conducted tests on UK roads since 2018. It received a huge boost earlier this year when it raised over $1 billion in a move led by Softbank and joined by Microsoft and Nvidia. In August, Uber also said it would invest to help the development of Wayve’s technology.Just like Tesla’s FSD, Wayve’s software provides an advanced driver assistance system that still requires driver supervision.Before driverless vehicles can legally hit the road, they must first pass strict safety tests.So far, Waymo’s technology, which relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), is the only of its kind to have received the nod from U.S. regulators.

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Are self-driving cars the death of car ownership?

Tesla Cybercab at night

Self-driving cars are coming. It remains to be seen how long that will take. Plenty of vehicles can more or less drive themselves on highways, but for now, they still can't completely reliably drive themselves on all streets, in all conditions, taking into account all different variables. One thing is clear, though: the tech industry sees autonomous driving as the future of personal transportation, and they're spending billions to reach that goal.

But what happens when we get there? Tesla made headlines for not only announcing its new Cybercab fully autonomous vehicle, but simultaneously claiming that customers will be able to buy one. That's right, at least if Tesla is to be believed, the Cybercab doesn't necessarily represent Tesla building its own Uber-killing fleet of self-driving cars, but instead giving people the ownership over the self-driving car industry.

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Everything we know about the Tesla Cybercab

Tesla Cybercab at night

After years of rumors and hype, Tesla has finally unveiled its plans for the future of autonomous driving in the form of the new Tesla Cybercab. The Cybercab is the company's end goal for self-driving tech, essentially serving as a vehicle that's completely autonomous to the point that it doesn't even have a steering wheel. The car was finally shown off at Tesla's "We, Robot" event on October 10 and gives a look at what Tesla thinks is the future of transportation.

At the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave us a ton of details about the vehicle itself and what Tesla hopes to achieve with it. There's still plenty we don't know about the Tesla Cybercab, but here's a look at everything that we do know.
Exterior design
The design of the vehicle is perhaps less surprising than you might assume. It looks kind of like a crossover between the Cybertruck and the Model 3, offering long light bars on the front and rear and a futuristic overall look, but in the shape of something that at least kind of resembles a typical car. Like the Model 3 and Model Y, it has a curved roofline along the top, but unlike those cars, it terminates in a flat rear similar to that of the cismCybertruck.