This announcement is part of a series of previous comments by the billionaire -Elon Musk about the launch dates.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, said on Monday that he expects the Full Self-Driving, or FDS, technology for Teslas to be launched in the U.S. by the end of this year. He also claimed that SpaceX’s Starship will also make its way into orbit by then.
“The two technologies I am focused on, trying to ideally get done before the end of the year, are getting our Starship into orbit … and then having Tesla cars to be able to do self-driving,” according to a Reuters report citing Elon Musk, who spoke at an energy conference in Norway. “Have self-driving in wide release at least in the U.S., and … potentially in Europe, depending on regulatory approval.”
This announcement is part of a series of previous comments by the billionaire about the launch dates. Talking about the date of launch of SpaceX’s first orbital test flight, Starship, it was earlier scheduled for July but later shifted to August. However, Musk replied to a Tweet on August 2 saying that the first successful orbital Starship launch will “probably (occur) between 1 and 12 months from now.” This implies the launch could happen as early as September, which is highly unlikely now! In all this confusion, it is difficult to predict when exactly Starship’s first successful orbital launch will happen.
About Elon Musk’s Tesla, it is noteworthy that despite its name, even the vehicles equipped with FSD require attention of the human driver who could take control when needed. Tesla vehicles today come with the Autopilot feature, which is a standard driver assistance system. Tesla owners have to pay an additional price to get FSD features that include the parking feature Summon and Navigate on Autopilot.
Despite the billionaire’s constant promises that FSD will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities, the adoption of the same appears to have remained flat in the first half of the year, according to an article by TechCrunch.
