Musk said back in 2015 he expected full self-driving cars by now, but 2018 was when the bloom started to come off the rose regarding Autopilot and other self-driving systems. There were more reports of stationary objects confusing the system, sending unwary drivers into the back of firetrucks or ambulances.
Tesla was still in production hell at the time. Musk claimed he was sleeping in factories, which his then-girlfriend electronic music star Grimes must have loved. But by mid-2018 things were looking better for the Model 3 roll out — Tesla’s honest stab at an affordable EV.
It was also the year Tesla surpassed Ford and Fiat Chrysler in market capital thanks to Tesla’s rising sales (and the big guys falling ones.) Shares headed upward toward $400 a share, which was when Elon Musk made his ill-advised tweet about taking the company private and tweeting he had the funds to do so. That tweet led to a Securities and Exchange Committee ruling which requires that a lawyer for the Tesla company review any of Musk’s tweets related to the company before he posts — a rule he may have broken twice.
In February 2018 on a shareholder’s call, Musk promised a cross-country fully autonomous ride within three to six months — a promise Musk originally made in 2016 with the potentially doctored self-driving Tesla commercial. From Mashable:
“It’s also one of those things that’s kind of exponential, it doesn’t seem there’s much progress and then suddenly “wow,” said Musk. “Time-wise, we could probably do a coast-to-coast drive in 3 months, 6 months in the outside.”
But once again, by the end of the year, Musk had changed his tune. In November, he told Recode (now Vox’s Technology page) that fully self-driving cars were only one year away, according to Forbes:
Speaking with Recode’s editor-at-large Kara Swisher, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he’s confident that the carmaker will achieve full self-driving next year, in 2019, ahead of any other car manufacturer.
“I don’t want to sound overconfident, but I would be very surprised if any of the car companies exceeded Tesla in self-driving, in getting to full self-driving,” confided Musk. “They’re just not good at software. And this is a software problem.”
This was around the time people started to get a little cocky about their so-called self-driving cars. Folks learned how to defeat the safety element that would ensure Tesla drivers would keep their hands on their steering wheels, much to NHTSA’s disapproval. Autopilot even drew the ire of Ralph Nader’s Center for Auto Safety. It probably should have been more robust than just hand pressure on the wheel, but Tesla thought, nah, fuck that.
Also happening in 2018: Nissan CEO Carl Ghosn got nicked by the cops in Japan, Waymo launched in Phoenix and began running very limited robo-taxis in the city, and Sergio Marchionne passed away, leaving the then Fiat-Chrysler directionless. Cars continued to die, and trucks continued to get bigger and bigger. On the other side, Porsche went all in on EVs with the critically acclaimed Taycan.
