Academics Critique Musk on Failed Tesla Self-Driving Promises

Elon Musk's bold past predictions on self-driving cars have never materialized and are not even close to this day, academics say.

"Tesla keeps saying next year, and I still don't see any reason to believe that promise," Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Phil Koopman told Business Insider. "There's no reason to believe that something magic will happen this year that failed to happen the year before and the year before and the year before."

Musk has promised for years Tesla vehicles were just a software update away from fully driving themselves; but academics remain unconvinced and critical, saying cars that do not require driver supervisor remain a long way off.

"Automation is going to be incremental and not just ready one day," Daniel McGehee, director of the University of Iowa's Driving Safety Research Institute, told BI.

To this day, Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta requires total driver supervision, like cruise control or smart Autopilot.

Among the failed predictions BI's academics noted were:

2016: Musk predicted a Tesla would be able to drive from Los Angeles to New York City's Times Square on its own with human help by the end of 2017.
2019: Musk was "very confident" by the end of 2020 Tesla's Full Self-Driving package owners would be able to sit on the couch and use their Teslas for ride-share income.
2019: Musk predicted gas-fueled cars would go the way of horse-drawn buggies: "Today it's financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla: It'll be like owning a horse in three years."

The Full Self-Driving package is $15,000 now and made strides; but Musk is still not there, even if he has stated publicly Tesla would be "worth basically zero" if it cannot make good on full autonomous driving promises, according to BI.

Koopman called Musk's Tesla plan to make its autonomous vehicles work on artificial intelligence over maps and sensors like a human brain would a "completely ridiculous analogy."

"Why would you want to tie one hand behind your back doing something that's nearly impossible?" Koopman asked BI, predicting Musk needs to change his goals.