SAN FRANCISCO: Tesla Motors is starting to build its electric cars with all the sensors, cameras and other gear needed to drive completely on their own when regulations allow the technology to take over that responsibility.
The announcement made late Wednesday by Tesla CEO Elon Musk marks the Silicon Valley automaker’s next step toward selling cars that can navigate the roads without the help of a human.
Google, ride-hailing service Uber and an assortment of other automakers also are working on a range of self-driving cars in an effort to ultimately turn the steering wheel over to robots.
Tesla has offered an automatic steering and braking system called Autopilot in its cars since last year, but that technology is meant to be monitored at all times by a driver.
After additional testing and getting the necessary regulatory clearance, all the cars rolling off Tesla’s assembly lines will have the equipment needed to be fully autonomous, Musk said. By auto-industry standards Tesla is small, making about 100,000 cars a year, although hopes to increase its production to 500,000 vehicles per year by 2018.
Musk predicted the technology will be twice as safe as a human driver. But adding the protection will jack up prices on Tesla vehicles that already can run over $80,000 depending on what features a buyer wants. Adding the software and activating the hardware needed for a fully autonomous car will cost an additional $8,000 — a more than 20 percent increase on the cost of Tesla’s $35,000 Model 3 sedan that is scheduled to be delivered next year.
Musk said he thinks the price will prove to be a pittance if he meets his goal of improving the technology so it’s eventually 10 times safer than a human driver. The cars with the fully self-driving technology will get those improvements in upgrades delivered online.
Tesla’s future cars will have eight cameras instead of the single one currently on the vehicles running the less-sophisticated Autopilot system. They will have sensors with twice the range as the current vehicles and have 40 times more computing power capable of performing 12 trillion operations per second, according to Musk.
“It will basically be a supercomputer in a car,” he said.
But it’s an open question when federal and state regulators in the US will settle on laws that allow robots to drive cars.
Even if regulations were to allow it now, Tesla is conceding it’s not ready to flip switch yet, saying it still needs to do more testing and gather more data. For that reason, safety features such as automatic emergency breaking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control that are currently available in current cars using the first generation of Autopilot won’t be immediately be turned on in the vehicles designed to be fully autonomous.
Those limitations make buying Tesla’s autonomous cars a “vanity purchase” akin to buying a TV offering ultrahigh-definition 4K pictures when relatively little programming is available in that format, said Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell.
“There’s also a risk that by the time all these self-driving features are fully tested and activated, other manufacturers may be ready to roll out more advanced hardware with better capabilities,” Caldwell said.
Consumer watchdogs have questioned whether Tesla’s first Autopilot system was ready to be on the road after a driver earlier this year using the system was killed when his Model S sedan struck a tractor-trailer in Florida. Tesla maintains Autopilot wasn’t at fault. Government regulators are investigating the circumstances of the accident.
Tesla equipping cars to drive completely on their own
Tesla equipping cars to drive completely on their own
Real Estate Registry signs 10 agreements at forum in Riyadh
RIYADH: The Real Estate Registry concluded its participation in the Real Estate Future 2026, as a partner of the forum, with a distinguished presence that included the launch of its business portal, the signing of 10 agreements and memoranda of understanding with entities from the public and private sectors, the organization of specialized workshops, and the awarding of the Gold Award at the Real Estate Excellence Awards.
During his participation in the forum, the CEO of the firm, Mohammed Al-Sulaiman, reviewed the latest developments in real estate registration in the Kingdom in a keynote speech, highlighting the pivotal role of the Real Estate Registry in building a unified and reliable system for data. He also announced the launch of the national blockchain infrastructure, which aims to enable the microcoding of real estate assets, enhance transparency, expand investment opportunities, and support innovative ownership models within a reliable regulatory framework.
On the sidelines of the forum, Al-Sulaiman met with Nigeria’s Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa. During the meeting, they discussed areas of joint cooperation, exchanged experiences and advice on shaping the future of the real estate sector, and reviewed best practices in implementing real estate registration systems that enhance reliability and improve the efficiency of property registration.
efficiency of property registration systems.
The Real Estate Registry’s participation included organizing three specialized workshops that focused on the role of geospatial technologies in identifying ownership, enhancing transparency, and improving the quality of real estate data.
The workshop “Empowering the Real Estate Registry for the Business Sector” reviewed digital solutions that enable the business sector to manage its real estate assets more efficiently and enhance governance and technical integration. The workshop “From Off-Plan Sales to Title Deed” focused on the journey of documenting real estate ownership and the role of the registry in linking the stages of development and documentation within an integrated digital system.
On the sidelines of the forum, the Real Estate Registry signed 10 agreements and memorandums of understanding, including a deal with Yasmina Information Technology Co. to utilize real estate data in developing smarter insurance solutions that support the real estate sector and enhance service reliability.
Partnerships were also signed with Haseel, NewTech, and Sahl, as well as HissaTech and Droub, to develop innovative digital solutions in property ownership, fractional ownership, and asset tokenization, as well as real estate finance and investment within a trusted regulatory framework.
Further collaborations included an MoU with ROSHN Group, an agreement with the Saudi Water Authority to enable data integration and quality enhancement, an agreement with the Saudi National Bank, and a partnership with Saudi Post to link the national address with the property registry as a unified geospatial identifier supporting data accuracy and integration.
The registry’s participation was crowned with the Golden Award at the Real Estate Excellence Awards in the category of Excellence in Property Documentation, in recognition of its role in building a model based on transparency, accuracy, and speed, as well as advanced digital technologies and specialized legal expertise, contributing to rights protection and increasing the sector’s attractiveness.
The Real Estate Registry emphasized that its participation reflects its continued role as a key enabler of the real estate sector, a trusted data source, and an active partner in driving digital transformation, enhancing market efficiency, and building investor and financier confidence, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 objectives for a fully integrated and sustainable digital real estate ecosystem.
