Tesla CEO makes guarded comments at transportation conference in Norway
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, hinted at an autonomous-driving solution to urban transportation problems.
He didn’t go into specifics while speaking at a transportation conference in Norway, but said what he has in mind “is not exactly a bus but would solve the density problem for inner city situations,” according to Bloomberg.
“Autonomous vehicles are key,” he said. “I don’t want to talk too much about it. I have to be careful what I say.”
Tesla Motors has integrated autonomous driving features in its Model S. According to the company, the vehicle uses a “combination of cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and data to automatically steer down the highway, change lanes, and adjust speed in response to traffic. Once you’ve arrived at your destination, Model S scans for a parking space and parallel parks on your command.”
Solving urban transportation issues like long commute times has been a priority in global tests of autonomous vehicle concepts.
In Singapore, for example, NuTonomy, a startup founded by two former MIT professors, is looking to integrate autonomous driving technology with a taxi network, providing point-to-point, on demand transport while cutting out the cost of human drivers.
“I very much agree with solving the high-density urban transport problem,” Musk said. “There’s a new type of car or vehicle that would be great for that and that’ll actually take people to their final destination and not just the bus stop.”
But for now, he’s not going to reveal what type of car or vehicle that might be.
