Tesla, the electric car making giant, has dropped another hint that it is considering a self-driving mobility service similar to that of Uber, the $51 billion ride-hailing service. On Thursday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company is hiring self-driving engineers and this is “a super high priority.”
Tesla ramping Autopilot software team
The urgency of Musk’s offer and the fact that he took to Twitter to reach out to the public indicates that the firm is planning to come up with a self-driving mobility service, says a report from the Huffington Post. Taking hints from Musk’s comments during an analyst call, Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley previously predicted that Tesla would come up with a mobility app within the next two years.
“Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact [email protected],” Musk tweeted.
On being asked how many engineers the company is planning to hire and what plans it has for them in the future, the company declined to comment. In an email to the Huffington Post, a Tesla spokeswoman said, “We’re going to let the tweets speak for themselves.”
In October, the company launched its Autopilot feature, which was not perfect. Soon after the company made it available, drivers started posting daring videos on YouTube. Those videos demonstrated that the autopilot mode was not safe as it could not detect some badly worn lane markers, leading to near-collisions with other vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles – the next big thing
With Autopilot mode, Tesla has made an attempt to remain in competition with the auto industry giants, which are competing with each other to perfect the self-driving vehicle. Google has garnered the most attention for its autonomous car program because it has brought a fleet of a bug-like vehicles to the roads which can be seen roaming around Mountain View, Calif.
In March, Mercedes unveiled a futuristic self-driving concept car, and its parent company Daimler also unveiled an autonomous 18-wheeler two months later. In October, General Motors revealed “aggressive” plans for self-driving vehicles. In July, the University of Michigan opened a testing facility which looked like a town because of its design. It is meant for traditional automakers and tech firms to test the software for their vehicles.
