Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the American electric vehicle maker has entered into talks with a ‘major’ automaker to license its self-driving technology, Electrek has reported.
Musk said in his remarks during Tesla’s earnings call last year that he wanted to ‘strongly emphasise’ that Tesla is open to licensing its sel-driving technology to other automakers, though now Musk has revealed more development, saying that Tesla is in early talks with “a major OEM” for the licensing of its Autopilot and Full Self Driving suites, the website reported.
The identity of the major automaker in talks with Tesla was not identified, however Musk said that licensing the FSD suite was also part of the plan. “We’re not trying to keep this to ourselves. We’re more than happy to license it to others,” Musk said.
Musk also revealed that Tesla customers will be allowed to transfer their vehicle’s FSD suite to another Tesla as a “one-time amnesty”, only in the third quarter of this year, allowing existing Tesla owners to transfer the capability to a newer vehicle and not have it locked in the older model, The Verge reported.
The carmaker’s autonomous driving systems, Autopilot and Full Self Driving have not had the easiest of times, however; it stopped the rollout of FSD Beta for the United States and Canada in February this year until a firmware update could be issued.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the US said the driver assistance system could cause crashes when in operation, and ordered Tesla to issue a recall.
Autonomous driving isn’t the only area where Tesla is contributing its technology to other carmakers. Nissan is among the latest to announce that it will be adopting Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS), after Mercedes-Benz and Volvo had announced the same move days prior; the carmakers will apply the charging standard in North America from 2025.
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