Teknikimobil.com – Tesla’s full self-driving confidence that was echoed in the first quarter of this year received strong doubt from Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson. He stated this recently at a press conference. He said that Elon Musk and his crew will have “no chance” of creating Level 5 self-driving next year. Interestingly, this statement appeared shortly after Tesla launched the self-driving suite functions which they will perfect in the near future.
For your information, Zoox is a self-driving car startup for the purpose of autonomous vehicles. Zoox is not like Tesla which develops self-driving technology while producing electric cars. Zoox is really focused on self-driving technology. The approach taken by Zoox is also different. They use a unique LiDAR setup. Namely by placing four individual units in each corner of the vehicle.
Full Self-driving Tesla Unlikely to Succeed in 2020
Levinson believes that currently there is no technology that will be able to achieve a fully self-driving car. He believes that it will come true but it will take time and is currently still under consideration. Thus, his confidence in Tesla being able to deliver full self-driving next year is completely out of the question.
However, Levinson acknowledged the greatness of the electric car created by Tesla. Likewise with Tesla’s Autopilot system which he believes is second to none. However, neither the sensors nor the computers to achieve full self-driving will be possible next year.
“They don’t have enough sensors or computers to do that considering there is any remotely known technology that humans have ever created. And by the way they have great cars, Tesla’s Autopilot system on the freeway is I think the best out there… I think if Musk focused on that aspect it would be better received,” he said.
Levinson’s statement should be based on research and direct action from his company. But he must be aware that Tesla has taken a different approach. Tesla is pursuing self-driving through FSD with special computers, neural networks, a series of cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors.
However, Musk really underestimated LiDAR when it comes to autonomous driving. He even said that LiDAR was a “stupid thing” if it was trusted for autonomous driving. Tesla was recently discovered to be using Tesla Hardware 3 to test on their vehicles in order to achieve FSD. For that reason, we will see the end of this story next year.