Is Elon Musk the most overrated “genius” in the world? JV Last compiles all the times Elon has said his driverless cars were on the way:
For years, Elon Musk has been promising that Teslas will operate completely autonomously in “Full Self Driving” (FSD) mode. And when I say years, I mean years:
- December 2015: “We’re going to end up with complete autonomy, and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years.”
- January 2016: “In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you’re in LA and the car is in NY.”
- June 2016: “I really would consider autonomous driving to be basically a solved problem. . . . I think we’re basically less than two years away from complete autonomy, complete—safer than a human. However regulators will take at least another year.”
- October 2016: By the end of 2017 Tesla will demonstrate a fully autonomous drive from “a home in L.A., to Times Square . . . without the need for a single touch, including the charging.”
- March 2018: “I think probably by end of next year [end of 2019] self-driving will encompass essentially all modes of driving”
- February 2019: “I think we will be feature complete—full self-driving—this year. Meaning the car will be able to find you in a parking lot, pick you up, take you all the way to your destination without an intervention, this year.”
I’m going to stop the litany here, but it continued. For a decade Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” has been a running joke. Every year, Musk says that FSD is months, or weeks away. Every year it slips over the horizon. And every year the media and the stock market pretend that Musk hasn’t failed.
But now Tesla’s FSD is really, truly, absolutely about to happen.
Maybe.
Apparently he’s promising to put robotaxis on the streets of Austin next June like it’s some kind of unique innovation. But there have been Waymos on the streets of my town for well over a year. I’ve used them. He’s very late to the party although I’m sure the press will pretend like he’s the big innovator when he isn’t.
As Last notes:
Of course we already have full self-driving technology. It’s called Waymo, it’s run by Google, and it operates a driverless taxi service in a growing number of cities across America. Just a few days ago, Tesla’s head of self-driving admitted that Tesla FSD is “a couple years” behind Waymo, which in Elon-speak probably means a decade. Or more.
So in a sense, Musk was correct that autonomous driving is a “solved problem.” Just not by him. […]
Under its Waymo brand, Google has driverless taxi fleets operating in eight cities (so far). They use a custom Jaguar, fitted with with cameras, sensors, and a fairly high-powered onboard computer. While Elon has been making FSD promises, Waymo vehicles have driven 40 million real-world miles.
What happened?
Elon Musk was stupid. That’s what happened.
More and more I’m seeing why Trump and Musk are so drawn to one another. They have a lot more in common that we might have thought.