Will Teslas Be Capable Of Fully Autonomous Driving Within Only 6 Months? (#ElonTweets)

January 25th, 2017 by James Ayre

Will Teslas featuring the new “Hardware 2.0” self-driving tech suite be capable of fully autonomous travel within only 6 months?

A new tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk seems to suggest so has people dreaming of this possibility, with the generous-with-information exec noting that this could happen features related to “full self-driving capability” will “depart” from “enhanced Autopilot” as soon as within 3 months. Here’s the tweet in question:

@tsrandall 3 months maybe, 6 months definitely — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 24, 2017

While that short Q&A is a bit ambiguous, it does seem to say that there will be big improvements to Tesla’s autonomous driving features within the near future (big improvements for those who already have the new Hardware 2.0 tech suite, it should be emphasized).

As CleanTechnica commenter “neroden” emphasizes down in the comments of this article, “Musk is not saying that full self-driving will be available in 3 to 6 months. He’s saying that some subset of it (partial self-driving?) will be available in 3 to 6 months.”

We’ll keep you posted as updates roll out.

On a related note, the Tesla CEO also recently released a tweet revealing that there will be a major software update rolling out this weekend to improve camera self-calibration ability — which should resolve the lingering calibration problems being experienced by some.

@dean_arexding There will be a software update this weekend that improves self-calibration ability — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 24, 2017

As a reminder, Elon Musk previously made public comments that Tesla was aiming to showcase its fully autonomous capability by sending a Tesla on a fully autonomous trip from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017 (with someone in the driver seat but not operating the vehicle). It’s unclear at this point if it will be a Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, or Tesla Model Y.

→ Related: Honestly, What Can Automakers Do About Tesla Model 3 & Model Y?

Note: This article has been updated to clarify the implications of Elon’s first tweet above, rewording one sentence and adding the 4th paragraph.











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