John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Elon Musk Is Building a Self-Driving Tesla

Tesla_roadster_coil“As an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Controls Engineer, you will be responsible for developing vehicle-level decision-making and lateral and longitudinal control strategies for Tesla’s effort to pioneer fully automated driving.”

That’s Tesla Motors’ pitch for an engineer to lead its new self-driving-car effort — one that founder Elon Musk says may come to fruition in just a few years. In an interview with the Financial Times, Musk said he expects Tesla to roll out an autonomous vehicle by 2016.

“We should be able to do 90 percent of miles driven within three years,” Musk told the London newspaper.

That’s a far more ambitious timeline than ones put forth by other automakers. Nissan, for example, recently pledged to bring a self-driving car to market by 2020. But Musk feels it’s possible if Tesla focuses on building a vehicle that handles most of the driving — not all of it.

“My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars,” he said. “It’s incredibly hard to get the last few percent.”

Twitter’s Tanking

December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks

December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik