Tesla is one of the very few companies that have brought semi-autonomous driving features to their cars. A few weeks back the company rolled out Autopilot features through a software update, and while the features have led people to do crazy things, Tesla is now attaching even more importance to this software. CEO Elon Musk has said that Autopilot is now “super high priority” at Tesla.
This was revealed by the CEO as he looks to shore up the company’s engineering talent. Musk tweeted that Tesla is looking for hardcore software engineers, it doesn’t matter if they have not worked with cars before.
He also mentioned that he will be interviewing the selected candidates personally and that the Autopilot team reports directly to him. “This is super high priority,” confirming that the company is ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve “generalized full autonomy.”
This just goes to show how serious the company is about beating its rivals in the race to produce fully autonomous cars, then again, technology is the relatively easy part. Clearing the legal and regulatory hurdles, like the ones that have forced it to disable Autopilot in Hong Kong, will be a mighty challenge for every company working towards this goal.
Tesla is on track to unveil its budget friendly all-electric car, the Model 3, in March next year. Perhaps the company will talk more about the future of Autopilot when it unveils that vehicle.
Should mention that I will be interviewing people personally and Autopilot reports directly to me. This is a super high priority.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
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