Elon Musk: Tesla Will Have Self-Driving Cars by this Year

South African born Tesla founder Elon Musk says the company will be able to make its vehicles completely autonomous by the end of this year. 

Musk says Tesla is already “very close” to achieving the basic requirements of this “level-five” autonomy, which requires no driver input.

Tesla’s current, level-two Autopilot requires the driver to remain alert and ready to act, with hands on the wheel.

However Musk says future software update could activate level-five autonomy in the cars – with no new hardware.

Speaking via video, Musk told the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai he is extremely confident about self-driving cars.

“I’m extremely confident that level five – or essentially complete autonomy – will happen and I think will happen very quickly.”

Musk says real-world testing is needed to uncover what would be a “long tail” of problems.