Elon Musk promises this year a 100% autonomous vehicle… capable of driving without a driver behind the wheel!

Steph Deschamps / July 10, 2020

Elon Musk, the fanciful boss of Tesla, assured Thursday that the manufacturer of electric vehicles will succeed this year in developing a fully autonomous car, capable of driving without a driver behind the wheel.

The businessman has repeatedly ventured on forecasts in recent years, first promising a fully autonomous vehicle for 2018, before finally pushing the deadline to early 2020.

"I am extremely confident that we will very quickly have the basic functionalities of level 5 autonomous driving, which is basically complete autonomy (…) this year," assured Mr. Musk in a video message to the opening of the World Conference on Artificial Intelligence (WAIC) in Shanghai.

Autonomous vehicles are divided into five categories according to their degree of autonomy. Level 5 represents complete autonomy with a vehicle capable of moving without a driver on any road.

Tesla cars are already partially self-contained, but analysts say full autonomy faces significant legal and regulatory hurdles.

Tesla became the most expensive auto company on the stock market last week, overtaking Toyota, even though Elon Musk’s firm sells far fewer cars than its Japanese competitor.

Tesla's market value has exceeded $ 224 billion in the New York market.