Tesla is “vastly ahead” on self-driving technology

Elon Musk believes that Tesla is less than two years from offering fully self-driving vehicles.

In an interview with MIT researcher Lex Fridman, Musk said that he believes that Tesla’s technology is much more advanced than other companies working on the same technology.

“To me right now, this seems ‘game, set, and match,'” said Musk.

Musk added that soon “having a human intervene will decrease safety,” and claimed that he would be shocked if this level of self-driving vehicle was not achieved by next year at the latest.

Musk is seemingly in the minority when it comes to being optimistic about self-driving vehicles.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik recently said that self-driving cars will always have limitations, adding that he doesn’t believe motor vehicles will ever be able to drive autonomously across all conditions without some degree of human input.

Additionally, Ford CEO Jim Hackett has reduced expectations surrounding self-driving cars, claiming that the company had “overestimated the arrival of autonomous vehicles”.

According to Brad Templeton, a self-driving car expert who previously worked with Google on its self-driving car program, Tesla is in fact far behind its rivals.

“Tesla Autopilot is not yet even close to where Waymo was 6 years ago, and while Waymo has launched a simple ride-hailing network, it still has safety drivers along for the ride most of the time,” said Brad Templeton.

The full interview between Musk and Fridman is below.