Tesla: Self-Driving Car Just Months Away

(RTTNews) - Luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) said Thursday that its new software upgrade of the vehicle operating system will see them turning into self-driving vehicles.

The miracle software upgrade is said to deliver a type of robo freeway handling.

This was revealed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a conference call with journalists. Musk said it will take another three months to come out with version 7.0 of the cars' operating system for the Model S.

Musk noted that the new operating system will reportedly allow each car to drive from San Francisco to Seattle with little or no need for the human driver to touch a pedal or wheel.

The operating system will initially be enabled only on freeways, with sensors in the front identifying white lines on the road, and keeping the car between them, and also sensing other vehicles around.

While talking about the feature in October, Musk said, "Model S will be able to steer to stay within a lane, change lanes with the simple tap of a turn signal, and manage speed by reading road signs and using active, traffic aware cruise control."

Musk added that future updates of the operating system could see the use of a smartphone app to hail the car to your location or even send it off automatically into a garage or parking space.

However, Musk's idea of a self-driving vehicle is sure to hit regulatory blocks as the rules regulating self-driving cars are currently murky. Meanwhile, there will be a high level of danger in Tesla's case as it will be untried technology.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA, has yet to come out with a statement of confidence in the future of self-driving cars.

In a 2013 statement that has yet to be updated, the NHTSA wrote, "At this point, it is too soon to reach conclusions about the feasibility of producing a vehicle that can safely operate in a fully automated (or "driverless") mode in all driving environments and traffic scenarios."