Tesla is getting closer and closer to realizing fully autonomous Level 5 self-driving cars. In a pair of recent interviews, CEO Elon Musk has said he is extremely confident Tesla will reach that level this year, where drivers will no longer have to pay attention to what the car is doing.
The one caveat with that statement is that Tesla owners might not be able to use it this year. As Musk has said many times in the past, receiving approvals can be a slow process, but he is hopeful a handful of jurisdictions will be quick to allow it once they see the safety data behind it.
Tesla isn’t the only company vying for the title of the first to achieve full autonomy. One that is a serious contender is comma, started by George Hotz. If that name sounds familiar, Hotz rose to fame after becoming the first to jailbreak the Apple iPhone in 2007.
After his recent comments, Hotz challenging Musk and Tesla to a $10,000 wager.
.@elonmusk We hear you are extremely confident that you’ll have level five next year (no longer need to pay attention at all). Want to wager $10k on that? We think you’ll win, but not that fast.
— comma (@comma_ai) December 31, 2020
Without explicitly accepting the friendly wager, Musk replied only to say FSD will “work at a safety level well above that of the average driver,” and again cited the slow regulatory approval process for possibly not meeting the deadline.
Hotz was quick to reply, revising the wager to Musk’s new terms saying he will buy a Model 3 with FSD. If in January 2022 the car can drive him around for a month with no disengagements, Tesla wins the bet.
I’m fine with that as the bet. We’ll buy a Model 3 with FSD. l’ll supervise it driving me around for a month next January, no disengagement you win, any safety disengagement or user action required to get to destination we win. Will post video proof to claim. Deal?
— comma (@comma_ai) January 2, 2021
As of the time of publication, Musk hasn’t officially responded to Hotz latest wager, but there will definitely need to be some clear terms before he does. Will Hotz simply put the Tesla into the most difficult driving situations for a month to try and get it to fail? Or will he use it as his daily driver and not create difficult situations for the software to fail?
Either way, 2021 is shaping up to be an exciting year for Tesla in many ways, including FSD!
