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Elon Musk Expects to Do Coast-to-Coast Autonomous Tesla Drive in 3 to 6 Months

posted by martyb on Thursday February 08 2018, @08:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the Look-Ma!-No-Hands! dept.

Fnord666 writes:

Tesla had aimed to do a cross-country U.S. drive in one of its vehicles using fully autonomous driving capabilities by the end of last year. Obviously it didn't make that goal, or you'd have heard about it. Instead, Tesla CEO Elon Musk now says he anticipates being able to make the trip within three months, or six months at the long end.

Specifically, Musk said on an earnings call in response to a question about the autonomous drive that they'd "probably" be able to "do a coast-to-coast drive in three months, six months at the outside." When asked whether this feature would then be immediately available to customers, he did say that it "will be a feature that's available to customers," without commenting directly on timing of availability.

Musk admitted that he'd "missed the mark on that front," regarding the original autonomous drive demonstration, but he qualified that Tesla "could've done the coast-to-coast drive [last year] but that the company "would've had to do too much custom code, effectively gaming it." It would've resulted in a feature that others could have used in their vehicles as well, but only for that exact cross-country route.

Source: TechCrunch

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 09 2018, @01:01AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 09 2018, @01:01AM (#635326) Journal

    But if you run out of gas, you really have no option but to get more gas somehow. If you have an electric car and run out of juice, you could set out a solar panel and trickle charge the thing until you could get it to the next charging place.

    Works only if there is sunlight.

    Or you could call a tow truck which would be about the same speed in each case (though much faster to carry fuel out than electric charge). And in the case where you have to walk for gas, it's a lot easier to carry a gallon of gas (which for my car gets me about 30-35 miles) than it would be to carry the equivalent amount of battery.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @01:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @01:36AM (#635339)

    > Works only if there is sunlight.

    Add'l requirements include plenty of food and water to wait for several days of charging...

  • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday February 09 2018, @01:06PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Friday February 09 2018, @01:06PM (#635483)

    making electricity is far easier than making gasoline - the major problem is that the raw materials combustion usually require millions of years of chemical conversion.

    I am happy to support anyone who does not trust an electric car, to continue to use a gasoline one.

    I cannot wait until a self-driving car become good enough to make *flying* less useful...