Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, said that by next year Tesla cars should be able to self-drive or autopilot 90% of the time, and certainly highway driving
Many other motor automakers and suppliers have predicted 2020 as a reasonable guide date for when publicly available cars are capable of running in a substantially autonomous mode, though some features of self-driving cars are coming sooner.
General Motors have announced that in 2017 they’ll have a semi-automatic system that enables hands-free driving on highways whether you’re traveling fast or stuck in traffic. Audi has also created a self-driving car with a system that gives the driver suggested speeds and tries to wake the driver up when asleep, and when that fails it turns on its emergency signal and calls 911. BMW has also revealed a modified version of the M235i Coupe that can brake, steer, accelerate and even drift without driver intervention.
BMW is teaming up with the Chinese search engine Baidu, which is already working on similar technology, to advance their autonomous driving technology.
Musk has a set of Tesla announcements lined up for October 9th, where he has promised “the D and something else.” It’s not currently known what either of those references is, but the company is expected to release an all-wheel-drive version of the Model S and a production version of the Model X in the near future.
