Tesla Critic Bets $10,000 Elon Musk Won’t Reach 2019 Goals On Autopilot, Robotaxis

Experts are almost unanimous in their agreement Tesla Inc. won’t attain its self-driving Holy Grail -- Level 5 autonomy -- for its electric vehicles (EVs) this year, Elon Musk’s protestations notwithstanding. By the 2020s is a more realistic timeframe.

This being the case, it seems a safe bet that former hedge-fund manager Whitney Tilson, who made his name shorting stocks such as Tesla, will win a $10,000 wager against anyone who defends Musk’s claim Tesla will reach Level 5 autonomy within 2019.

Tilson is so confident he also says that Musk won’t get to Level 5 even by 2020. He’s also betting the same amount against anyone who thinks Musk will have a fleet of robotaxis on American streets by 2020.

“Tesla is a zillion miles from Musk’s promise of Level 5 by the end of this year and a fleet of a million robotaxis by the end of next year,” he said in an email to investors posted on ValueWalk.

“Elon’s claims are far from being reality.”

He sent a link to a video to show how behind he says Tesla is in its vision of reaching Level 5.

“If you don’t have the time to watch it, I’ll summarize it for you: Autopilot is laughably bad,” according to Tilson. “The driver had to intervene dozens of times -- every few seconds, it seemed -- to avoid major accidents.”

According to the SAE International Automated Driving Standards, Level Five or Complete Automation, is a level of autonomous driving requiring absolutely no human attention. There's no need for pedals, brakes or a steering wheel as the autonomous vehicle system controls all critical tasks. This system also monitors the environment and identifies unique driving conditions like traffic jams.

Musk of late doesn’t even seem confident he can get to Level 5 this year. At Tesla’s Autonomy Day last month, Musk admitted “Sometimes, I’m not on time.”

This was his answer to a question about his bold and brash claim Tesla will be considered “feature complete” later this year, and that human drivers will be able to go completely hands-free and eyes-closed on Tesla EVs by the second quarter of 2020. Feature complete means Tesla attaining true Level 5 driverless autonomy.

Despite conceding he’s been wrong at times on his schedule-targeted predictions, he asserted that he ultimately gets the job done.