Intense effort underway at Tesla to develop a practical autopilot system for Model S

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2013

Engineers interested in working on autonomous driving, pls email autopilot@teslamotors.com. Team will report directly to me.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2013

Approach is 360 deg flush mounted tiny cameras + radar (prob not lidar). Lot of software & hardware level image processing.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2013

After plans for Autonomous driving were revealed this week via Tesla’s job site, Musk went on the offensive saying that yes they were working on a program and the team reports directly to him.

This is a stark (get it?) change from a previous stance where Musk said Tesla was taking a more wait and see approach. Perhaps Google’s plans to build their own car spurred him on?

Related articles

• Elon Musk: Autonomous driving team will report directly to me (siliconbeat.com)
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk conducts Twitter engineer search (newsday.com)
• Elon Musk posts autopilot Tesla requirements on Twitter (techi.com)
• Tesla CEO Uses Twitter to Find Engineers for Project (bloomberg.com)
• Tesla Plans Self-Driving Car, Elon Musk Looks for Autopilot Engineers on Twitter (webpronews.com)