Tesla CEO, Elon Musk is all about sharing and caring. The EV entrepreneur is keen to help the world and automotive industry move forward to sustainable energy and even self-driving capabilities. This week, Musk says they are starting discussions around licensing the company’s Full Self-Driving technology, which is cutting-edge.
This is a great step forward for companies such as Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR) that manufactures integrated circuits used to power advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
It’s not a new approach by the EV boss. In 2006, Musk was already talking about getting the automotive industry to embrace the changes coming with transport electrification. His initial plan over a decade ago was to produce a sports car, luxury vehicle, as well as a people carrier. He has proved he can achieve his goals, which has positioned him as a leader in the electric vehicle market, and he has set the benchmark for other auto manufacturers to follow.
Musk has created a brand with a significant fan base, which is attracting more consumers to enjoy the ingenuity of Tesla vehicles. It has also ignited the competition for automakers to get into the EV space with a focus on autonomous driving. General Motors, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Rivian, Volvo, just to name a few, are all planning to produce fleets of electric vehicles.
The car makers of the world are going full steam ahead with EV designs and production that include advanced safety systems and self-driving functionality that will use intelligent systems that will autobrake, autosteer, and rely more on sensors to prevent road accidents.
These sensors involve several cameras in the front and rear, driver monitoring, and radars. Tesla has been at the forefront of integrating these features into its Autopilot, and to date, no other car manufacturer has come close to producing an equal.
Tesla’s Autopilot has been in development for years and continues to improve. While this has given the EV company an advantage, Tesla also has its network connectivity to analyze the driving behavior of its customers. Thousands of Tesla owners utilize this FSD software in real-life scenarios every day, and through the use of artificial intelligence, Musk’s company can use this data to make its software more and more advanced.
Two days ago, Musk said in a conference call with analysts that Tesla still has a way to go to realize its full self-driving goal. Tesla’s engineers have to teach AI systems to manage the footage received from all the cameras simultaneously.
In April 2019, at the Tesla Autonomy Day, Musk announced that there was investment in training using Dojo, a new supercomputer application, and now the Tesla boss is saying that Dojo will possibly be part of a licensed package that they will sell to other car companies.
Obviously, Tesla will need to iron out any bugs before they can take this step and make it available but once that happens, there will be a surge in equipment manufacturers to get their components produced that will be able to handle the data that Dojo is able to process.
Getting integrated circuits to handle the next generation of advanced driving assisted systems is going to be critical successful factor for any auto manufacturer that wants to take advantage of Tesla’s technology. That would mean the car companies can focus on cars, without any massive spending on research and development for FSD technologies.
Although today’s modern cars have advanced infotainment systems, USB ports, and state-of-the-art cooling/heating systems, the next level of the EV is about self-driving. And if Tesla shares its knowledge and technology, it could help auto manufacturers go into production quicker and open up a new market for auto parts suppliers across the globe.
