Tesla is about to level up. No, not by playing Pokemon Go, but by introducing Level 4 fully autonomous driving features.
Elon Musk is raving about Tesla’s rapid progress on the project and set the release date for the new technology in Q4 2017.
Musk stated, “What we’ve got will blow people’s minds, it blows my mind …it’ll come sooner than people think.”
The anticipation for complete self-driving technology is high, but what exactly will the new technology feature? And where will it be installed? Elon Musk claims Tesla will do the “obvious thing” but remains purposefully vague.
While the hardware for the autonomous driving features is already in place, the software is still currently undergoing evaluation before release. It is also Tesla’s priority to expand the advanced neural maps.
The next question is whether or not the technology will be approved of in due time for the public’s use. Has the release date possibly been set too soon?
After all of the flack Tesla received for the infamous autonomous driving accident, regulators are likely to carefully investigate the new technology.
Musk, as always, appears to be confident in the level 4 autonomous driving technology. He stated, “It blows me away the progress we are making. And if it blows me away, it’s really going to blow away other people too when they see it for the first time.”
Tesla’s Model 3 is expected to be released in close proximity to the autonomous technology. Whether Model 3 will be autonomous is unclear, although Musk has hinted at an affirmative response.
More details should be coming soon, most likely at the end of the year. The bar has been set high for autonomous driving features. For the future of safe, swift driving, let’s hope Tesla can rise to the challenge.
