GM is planning to put autonomous steering wheel-free cars on the road in 2019:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/11/gm-and-cruise-reveal-their-fourth-generation-steering-wheel-free-cruise-av/ We all know that autonomous steering wheel-free cars is the future, but 2019? Wow!
It seems to me that Tesla is turning in to a spearhead tech company, which is showing the way for the rest of the industry but fail to keep up when the technology becomes mainstream.
Tesla is still the leader in electric cars but that too is changing. All major carmakers have plans for electric cars within the next five years. If the industry manages to lower the production cost gab between an electric car and a regular car the competition will be completely reset and Tesla will experience a Nokia/Iphone moment.
We have a lot of Tesla’s in Denmark and Norway has the highest Tesla market penetration in the world. In both countries Tesla owners are complaining about many weeks of waiting time on service and repairs because Tesla has supply chain and service issues. The simply don’t have the muscle and experience that the traditional carmakers have.
So now they are planning to make a fancy semi-truck and they have already sold 1000. Congratulations. I still don’t see Tesla as anything but a spearhead tech company.