Elon Musk says Tesla could achieve fully autonomous driving ‘later this year’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that the electric-vehicle maker could achieve fully autonomous driving by later this year. 

Addressing the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in China, the billionaire said in a video that he believes the company is “very close to achieving full self-driving without human supervision” and will “achieve full self-driving, maybe what you would call (level) four or five, I think later this year.”

Musk was referring to Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) standards for fully autonomous driving. 

Level four is near-autonomous driving, with automated driving features that do not require the driver to take over. 

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Comparatively, level five can do the same, but has the ability to drive the vehicle under all conditions.

While Musk stressed that this timeline is “only speculation,” he noted that it feels like Tesla is “closer to it than we ever have been.”

Musk also admitted that he has been “wrong about this prediction in the past.”

Currently, Tesla’s autopilot, enhanced autopilot and full self-driving features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.

“Full autonomy will be dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions,” the company says on its website. “As Tesla’s autopilot, enhanced autopilot and full self-driving capabilities evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.”