Tesla announces fully self-driving cars

SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla Motors announced Wednesday that its electric cars will be the first in the nation to all be fitted with the hardware they need to drive themselves.

CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday that the automaker's Model S, X and forthcoming Model 3 sedan will start being outfitted with "the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver."

That constitutes full Level 5 autonomy, which doesn't require any driver involvement. That's the ultimate goal for a range of automakers and tech companies, including Google, Ford and Volvo, which have vowed to produce such self-driving vehicles by 2021.

Musk did not say exactly when such technology would be consumer-ready, although he did say regulatory hurdles would have to be vaulted first.

"It's not up to us, it's up to the regulators, and we hope things don't become balkanized and different in every state," he said. "It's a question of what the public and regulators think is appropriate. The system will always be operating in 'shadow mode,' though, so we can gather a lot of sophisticated data to show where software could have acted or not acted."