“Now really self-driving Teslas are coming,” says Elon Musk for the umpteenth time

Actually, we should just ignore Elon Musk’s statements. For the umpteenth time in ten years, Tesla CEO says fully self-driving Teslas will be coming soon. And they don’t come…

Are we sure there won’t be fully self-driving Teslas coming this year? No, but we’re also not sure if our universe isn’t ruled by a flying spaghetti monster or an invisible purple unicorn.

Tesla predictions from Elon Musk

There’s a video that bundles all of Elon Musk’s predictions about self-driving cars. He started doing this in 2014 when he claimed that autonomous Teslas would be introduced next year. And so it changed every year.

Now it’s that time again. Last week, Musk was speaking at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, where he said Tesla’s fully automated driving system will operate at Level 4 or 5 autonomy later this year.

“That’s speculation,” Musk held back, “but I think we’ll see a fully self-driving system later this year, you think.” [niveau] four or five comes true.”

Self-driving cars are SAE Level 5

A fully self-driving car is Level 5 as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Level 4 is just below and is suitable for a vehicle that can act autonomously in a defined area or in certain situations.

Currently, most cars are at level 2, including Tesla. A car can perform various actions on its own, but the driver must always be alert and ready to intervene.

Autopilot and full self-driving are misleading

In that sense, the names Tesla uses are incredibly misleading: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Beta. Both systems are still a long way from being self-propelled, nor are they expected to be anytime soon, despite Musk’s claims.