Speaking about the future of electric cars during an exclusive interview with the BBC, Elon Musk predicts that all transport, except rockets, will go fully electric and that Telsahas been an ‘catalyst’ to the transition.
Musk hopes that the Tesla Model 3, expected to launch in 2017, will be the most affordable car the company has produced - a necessity in order to be able to make a substantial impact on the market (the company already makes a loss on its current models).
When asked about Apple’s rumoured introduction to the market, Musk welcomes the potential competition, saying it would “expand the industry.” Most significantly, coming from someone so significant in the market, he also adds it is an “open secret” that Apple are working on an electric car, and that it is “pretty hard to hide something when you hire over a thousand engineers to do it.”
So Apple, what are you hiding?
The Tesla chief also expects that one day in the near future,autonomous cars will be able to drive from one side of the country to the other without the need for a driver and that non-autonomous cars would be a thing of the past.
"Owning a car that is not self-driving in the long term will be like owning a horse,” says Musk, “you would own it and use it for sentimental reasons but not for daily use."
You can find out what we thought about Tesla Autopilot, the self-driving feature downloadable to their current line-up that will keep you cruising down the motorway with your hands (for the most part) off the wheel, in the video below.
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