This proves Tesla is really ahead of the game and keep the lead for few more years for sure.
One stunned engineer from a major Japanese automaker examined the computer and declared, “We cannot do it.”
Tesla is “6 years ahead of Toyota and VW”
I’d love to own a Tesla
It also makes it that much more hackable.
I’d rather stick with an old car without electronics!
The touchscreen on my (fairly new) car has already drifted to the point of unresponsiveness. For no apparent good reason.
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I remember those times were it was possible to repair a car by your own.
We swapped even a intire motor .
Today?
Something is “blinking” at the screen.
You need a service! 
A fellow shows up dressed in a suit connecting a laptop.
After checking the car with this laptop he tells you:
“You need a new car” 
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I remember servicing my own car @Chiquinho
Changing points and timing, plugs and belts etc.
Now an engine bay is barely recognisable!
Although i do not miss the manual choke - many here would never have heard of this, you’ll need to search Google for this 
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Well the Chinese will buy ONE, then copy it and steal the whole Chinese market at least
Old Diesels no chance without choke.
We owned a Mercedes 180
When we sold it it was 600.000 km
I am sure before breakdown it got a 1000.000 km.
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Thats a great looking car @Chiquinho
I had old (cheap) Fords. This MK1 Ford Fiesta was my very first car, not this one but identical.
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Well to be objective you cannot state ahead, only behind as you cannot fully predict the future, for all we know a non-Tesla whizkid is working on something which will leap ahead of Tesla within 6 years.
The universe is non-deterministic, after all, much to Einstein’s dislike.
I see us not owning high-tech vehicles as all those electronics, under Moore’s Law, will become obsolete before the vehicle is worn out. Vehicles are used by an individual on average for 4% of the time.
So from the time of manufacturing, it should self-drive itself continuously, picking up passengers, dropping off, and when not needed, parking in a recharging station til needed next. That means an area only needs to physically have enough vehicles for average peaks.
I also see a future where you cannot own a car, and cannot drive a car. It goes like this:
- you cannot drive a petroleum vehicle in a city, ostensibly to improve air quality
- you cannot drive any vehicle in a city due to congestion and parking. You’re expected to “park and ride” and use shared transport outside. Exceptions are for shared vehicles (bus, etc)
- the gaps between shared transport and a private vehicle is a personal journey, so going between other than bus / tram / train stops.
- those gaps call to rent a vehicle. Those cannot be petroleum, by definition, so you have the issue of recharging a rental, you need to drop it off at a charging station, but then how do you simply stop
using it in any other place? Well it has to be self-driving back to a charging station and drive itself to your requested pickup point - eventually driving becomes too expensive for a human due to higher insurance, once self-driving is proven to be safer
- eventually it is illegal to drive
I cannot predict when but there is an inevitability of urbanisation, the “last mile” problem and more intelligent vehicles and the need to park up in places where people are not.
For now, someone who pays $$$ for a Tesla, with an intelligence not being used for 96% of the time, is not very intelligent use of resources, most of the parts cannot be recycled.
Today, walking, I saw a long line of cars, I kept walking to find a broken down vehicle in the middle of the road, with the driver stood to the side waiting. So, say, 100 vehicles were getting 15 minutes delay, due to 1 vehicle’s failure. Imagine a future smarter version, he’d get out of that broken vehicle, get another one which had pulled up in front, and then an automated repair truck came to tow it, the car automatically summoned a repair, diagnosing what area was broke, and suppose the repair truck came to swap the broken part and vehicle quickly became available?
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Thank god I won’t be around when all that becomes reality
It will happen in cities first, due to traffic and pollution.
Initially only electric vehicles allowed, you then won’t be able to drive in to a city, if you do it will initially be under a fee you automatically pay. London is an example already, the congestion charge. Then no cars as all that happened was people just moved from congestion from petrol cars to congestion from electric cars. You can see it work itself up over time.
If you want to drive, you probably can for at least a century but in less and less places until the number of road accidents from human-driven is so much higher than robotic cars, then its illegal. I’d guess you’re talking 30-50 years before that. So I think some children born now many won’t bother driving due to cost of ownership, no parking in an apartment and just live off scooters, e-bikes, Uber/Lyft/etc, and eventually the human-driven Uber/etc disappear.
You’ll get a city, I suspect San Francisco, where the urban young cannot afford other than an apartment and wish to breed - have babies - so cannot ebike / scooter like they did as single childless. They’ll then want, and indeed have voting rights to force a law change, to stop the cars from their front door once a valid alternative exists. Some cities like New York had “cut and cover” mass transit systems and shops a minute away.
If you’re over 50 years old I suspect none will ban you driving other than possibly in next 10-20 years in some cities.
The two tipping points will be:
- a self driving vehicle becomes cheaper to rent per mile / hour than owning, you then summon one. As the most expensive part is probably the “brains”, it is cheaper to rent that “brain” for an hour than buy it outright to have it doing nothing for 96% of the time. The self-driven part can be optional and some will use it, some won’t, while you are in the vehicle, but the vehicle has to be self-driven to go from when you stop needed to the next person who needs it.
- self driving becomes objectively proven to be safer, then human driven is made illegal.
You would have to get an ancient car in order not to have a computer in it…
If you could get Fred Flintsones old car you would be sorted 
True. But at least a car that doesn’t require software updates…
When did cars start having software?
A car like a Corolla (which I’ve driven most of my life) has always had a computer, and software to go with it. While it doesn’t need software updates, you could get updates if you have the right hardware to do so.
I would love a tesla car. That would be sweet
If we all follow the “green” requirements we will get soon back to the roots!
I would like that, because I know were I could get such one! 
No update is needed anymore.
But the “burro” needs care and love.
Much better!
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I see this happening within next 10 years
I can see it becoming illegal to drive in well defined environments first where the scenarios of accidents are small in quantity as each proved safer automated, and then successively work up as proven in more complex environments.
Say we enter a phase where only self driving cars can join freeways before other roads as they are both unsafe at human reaction times at speed and they are simpler.
As to a date, I can’t guess, but 10 years feels too fast. The law usually follows society, and there will be a date when there’s been a month of humans caused deaths and no robot caused deaths and then the media then society peer pressure then the law catches up.
Machines are getting smarter, humans aren’t. Machines will be safer at simple tasks, then more complex tasks.
But I digress - the point is in this thread that Tesla vehicles smart, years ahead, well a Tesla car is also expensive, mostly due to the cost of the intelligence, so why buy that intelligence to be used for 4% of the time when you can rent it when required.
Batteries also expensive and they age even when not being used.
So I see first smart cars being in the per-mile market to get the $$$$ income in fast before it becomes redundant worthless.
At the time of the horse and cart, they were the “Tesla” of their time, hugely expensive, not that green, and most people walked.
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I have said that I think it will be illegal to drive a car (with a steering wheel) before I die. I have not yet considered that even self-driving vehicles will be illegal someday. Wow
Self driven will become illegal in phases, probably the last place legal is rural where population density low and people still buy cars and human driven cheaper.
The two phases in society are you cannot do what harms others, then you cannot do want harms self. The former bans driving in urban, the latter in rural. You then find you pay extra for driving insurance if you drive, then pay more for medical insurance if you drive. Then the law catches up as uninsured drivers forces law changes, and then self driven cars are banned.
There will be a moment when your human driven car is not allowed beyond a point, like an entry to a city. You can park it there then move to an alternative. You then do the math. Why bother driving your car at all.
So the last place humans drive is probably farms and other self owned land.
Then the waiver you ask to be signed to enter your land puts everyone off and so you have to get rid of your human driven vehicle to get anyone insured to visit you. That’s the very last steps as I see it.