Elon Musk says the upcoming Tesla Model 3 has the hardware to enable full-self driving capability. But GM’s self-driving car czar thinks he’s full of crap.
GM’s director of autonomous vehicle integration Scott Miller told a group of Australian journalists in Detroit on Thursday that Musk was “full of crap”, explaining that a “level 5” – that is, fully autonomous – vehicle would require hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of sensors. Even for a company like Tesla, which investors have practically encouraged to burn through large sums of cash, offering such an advanced vehicle for between $30,000 and $50,000 would be an impossibility.
“I think he’s full of crap,” Mr Miller said. “To think you can see everything you need for a level five autonomous car [full self-driving] with cameras and radar, I don’t know how you do that.”
Tesla and a handful of other car companies are testing autopilot in Australia, according to the Leader.
The company is planning to price the Model 3, which just started rolling off the production line at Tesla’s California factory, at $50,000 in Australia. The car reportedly incorporates cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors for self-driving.
However, as the Leader points out, the Model 3 won’t be able to use Tesla’s controversial autopilot feature until the company’s engineers perfect the software. A Tesla driver in Florida became the first person to die in an accident involving Autopilot. Eventually, the NHTSA ruled that Tesla wasn’t at fault in the crash. But since then, other customers have complained that they found the way in which autopilot was marketed to be misleading.
This article appeared at ZeroHedge.com at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-05/gm-self-driving-car-czar-says-elon-musk-full-crap
