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List of Elon Musk Autopilot Predictions

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This March 2015 video has some interesting notes, though nothing inflammatory. Regarding @Bladerskb's message, a few quotes like "solved problem, a few years"... "2-3 years before regulators allow", no steering wheel many years from now. Still, a nice video to watch and calibrate our current thinking.

Elon was at the Drive PX launch which I noted here at the time, but everyone was just gushing on about MobilEye... ;)

GTC 2015: NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang Interviews Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk

Personally I remember following with interest also the intermediate step between AP1 and AP2. Some recollections on that: I found the Business Week/Bloomberg article interesting that had possibly a small glimpse into the original plan for Model X, "AP 1.5" (dual front cameras). I also distinctly remember there was some interview with Elon Musk talking, in early 2015, about the improved pedestrian detection coming in Model X. Some sources: Musk Sees Seattle-Made Satellites in Race to Mars --- Is Model X (or was?) getting an "AP 1.5" before full-autonomous "AP 2.0" suite upgrade?)
 
aim high ... and force everyone to play catchup.
the guy is an inspirational leader.

You don't inspire by saying now move the other foot, soon you'll be walking, you inspire by stating the seemingly impossible then working like heck to make it happen. Sometimes it doesn't go quite to plan but always you'll make greater steps by aiming higher than others.

good enough for me :)
 
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Seems like some hired guns here to go after Tesla.
there are plenty of those who post comments about the many shortcomings of the product tesla puts out around here to bolster their positions in the stock but sometimes the facts are the facts and most of us know that Elon is sometimes guilty of expressing "irrational exuberance" at times.
I think someone aptly called the implementation of some of his promises as tesla time.
if you filter out much of the hype tossed around and just enjoy driving one of the most advanced vehicles on the road you'll have a much better tesla experience
 
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The criteria seems to have shifted in time. Back initially, Elon was talking about level 4 and simply probability of accident better than a human (from other thread this is a crash in ~350k miles or ~2-3 crashes per lifetime).

More recently there is talk about level 5 (I remember this mentioned in the FSD event) and talk about crashes in multiple lifetimes.

Actually the highest level at that point was level 4 from the NHTSA , which was what everyone used.
Then from SAE a new definition was constructed, level 4 became level 5 and then they created a new level 4. NHTSA and everyone else then adopted SAE levels.
So when Elon mentions level 4, he's talking about level 5.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Policy on Automated Vehicle Development

Which is proven by this tweet aswell as Elon describes a car with no driver going anywhere. (which ofcourse you also left out in your commentary)

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" -

Elon Musk on Twitter




Also you forgot to add any commentary for the below and i wonder why. ;)

Highway Autonomy / EAP

June 2014: "I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exists without touching any controls." -

Tesla’s 2014 Shareholder meeting [video]
 
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Actually the highest level at that point was level 4 from the NHTSA , which was what everyone used.
Then from SAE a new definition was constructed, level 4 became level 5 and then they created a new level 4. NHTSA and everyone else then adopted SAE levels.
So when Elon mentions level 4, he's talking about level 5.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Policy on Automated Vehicle Development

Which is proven by this tweet aswell as Elon describes a car with no driver going anywhere. (which ofcourse you also left out in your commentary)

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" -

Elon Musk on Twitter




Also you forgot to add any commentary for the below and i wonder why. ;)

Highway Autonomy / EAP

June 2014: "I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exists without touching any controls." -

Tesla’s 2014 Shareholder meeting [video]
I don't think the last bit is as relevant overall to the other points, as it's just level 2, while the others were all discussing level 4 and level 5. It got partially to "without touching any controls" for a while, where the system can drive with no hands on steering wheel for long periods of time (I believe you once linked to a trip where 9x% of a cross country trip was done without touching controls), but NHTSA wanted Tesla to implement better enforcement of driver attention (now there is a nag system). So now there will never be a point where regular AP will be "without touching any controls" even if they got the on ramp to off ramp done correctly. So the point is kind of moot. FSD will be the only place where this will be realized.

But full quote from your own source for that bit:
Unidentified Analyst
Thanks a lot for what you are doing for us people for your ending space. My question is maybe next two (inaudible) and next transformations I think for cars are autopilots, self driving by technologies, you mentioned that you are investing in that. Can you give us an update where you are?
Elon Musk – Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman
So I think we are making some really good progress on the autopilot side, and I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exists without touching any controls. Go ahead.

If you want to expand the scope to Level 2 and the status updates Elon provided on that, there are a lot more quotes that can be found.

March 2015:
"We’re pretty excited about the progress we’re making there. The main test route that we’re evaluating is the San Francisco to Seattle route, and we’re now almost able to travel all the way from San Francisco to Seattle without the driver touching any controls at all.

That’s a feature that requires a lot of validation testing, but we’re hoping that we can start releasing the first sort of auto-steering features in about three months or so."
The Tesla Model S Will Get “Autopilot” Mode In About Three Months

June 2015:
20. Another shareholder asking about auto-steering and if there are government hurdles.
21. Elon: I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll have Autopilot to early access customers by the end of this month. No issues with government since auto-steer is a driver aid.
Tesla Livestream of 2015 4. Auto Shareholder Meeting notes and observations 7.13.

Better quote:
"I’m testing the latest version of autopilot every week," he said. "Typically, two or three builds per week that I’m testing on my car... But it is quite a tricky thing and we want to make sure our testing is exhaustive before releasing the software. But if we keep making progress I think we will be able to get it out to early access customers, which is our public beta program, around the end of this month. The expectation is that someone is paying attention to the road and is ready to take over if there’s an issue."
Tesla's Elon Musk Personally Tests Autopilot Function Each Week

June 2015 Same meeting actually had talk about self driving:
33. Shareholder asking how long until fully self-driving car.
34. Elon: It will be technically possible in approximately 3 years. It will take some time after that for regulators to accept it being okay for one to fall asleep in a self-driving vehicle. 1-3 years after that until regulators approve it, but that’s not under my control.
Tesla Livestream of 2015 4. Auto Shareholder Meeting notes and observations 7.13.

He seems to be fairly consistent about self driving being technically possible in 2018/2019 time frame, but regulations will take a couple years after that.
 
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He seems to be fairly consistent about self driving being technically possible in 2018/2019 time frame, but regulations will take a couple years after that.

In what world is December 2017 equal to 2018/2019?

What we do know is that he's been saying "in 2 years" since 2015 and his latest promise puts it at April 2019 while the initial promise put it at December 2017. That's about 1 year 6 months.
 
Where I am from the term we use for people that "oversell" is.... full of sh*t.

All the grand promises pump the stock up and create hype. Eventually overpromising and under delivering will catch up and all the warts will come to the surface.
Tesla has accomplished some amazing things but the time has come to perfect quality, have well run service centers, and great communication vs a quarterly bullsh*t speech.



I clearly disagree with the way that Elon oversells just about everything. You are here on TMC enough to know that I have criticized Tesla strongly on a number of things, including but not limited to factory/delivery QA and transparency. But I can still find positive things to say about what's been done. I can see a positive aspect to a guy who has possibly overpromised because he's blindly optimistic. Click the numeral under my "Messages:" number on the left. Read back to my X delivery, my input on the Ludicrous counter issues and beyond.

That said, a balanced viewpoint includes giving proper credit where credit is due. If someone can't do that, then yes - I think there's a problem with the well. I'm certainly not trying to poison it. But if it's poisoned, I want to ensure the village doesn't drink from it.
 
In what world is December 2017 equal to 2018/2019?

What we do know is that he's been saying "in 2 years" since 2015 and his latest promise puts it at April 2019 while the initial promise put it at December 2017. That's about 1 year 6 months.

In June 2015 he said "approximately 3 years". That's approximately June 2018 and if using a 1 year time scale (as Elon seems to be using) that's 2018/2019.

Your first quote from December 2015 was "approximately two years" which is 2018 in my book (exactly would be December 2017, but he said approximately). Given the June 2015 quote above, it's far more likely he is talking about well into 2018.

The June 2016 Recode event, I didn't look through the video yet to find the exact quote (absolutely hate that there is no transcript or at least CC of this video to be found anywhere). But supposedly he said "I think we are less than two years away" (only place where he drops the approximately), which points to June 2018.

The latest quote in March/April 2017 (you said March in OP, but event was from April) for "about 2 years" (April 2019 exactly) still falls within the same "approximate" time frame. However, it was talking about not having a crash in multiple lifetimes which is a much higher barrier than previously (where it was simply better than a human).

However, in a granularity of 1 year, looking for something centering around transition from 2018-2019 seems to be what Elon had been expecting. Taking the earliest (~June 2018) and latest prediction (~April 2019) that's 10 months, which is within the granularity of 1 year.
 
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