Car of the Year Finalist: The remarkable Tesla Model X

During his interview, Musk reiterated that the legislative environment will slow the introduction of autonomous cars. It hopes to begin selling fully autonomous vehicles in two to five years, perhaps in partnership with Ford.

This week, however, Musk told business magazine Fortune that Tesla is making even greater progress in its development of autonomous driving systems.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the production electric crossover during a massive gathering at a company facility in Fremont, California, on Tuesday night. After enough data is collected and it becomes “statistically clear that an autonomous auto is safer”, he believes regulators will finally be comfortable with fully autonomous vehicles.

Tesla’s Model 3, which the company says will have a starting price of $35,000, happens to have a planned launch date in late 2017 – the same time frame Musk says Tesla could have autonomous driving hardware ready.

When it comes to commercial availability of truly autonomous cars, Musk says it will be between 1 and 5 years, depending on the jurisdiction.

Autonomous driving technology has emerged as the newest fad among automobile manufacturers the world over.

Tesla has already released the first generation of its autopilot that offers drivers computer-assisted parallel parking, steering and lane changes.

Meanwhile, in connection with Tesla’s efforts in the autonomous-vehicle arena, Musk had previously said in a November post on the Twitter microblogging platform that Tesla has made “generalized full autonomy” a “super high priority”. This level of autonomous driving, he told Fortune, would boast lower probability of accidents than when a person is driving.

The Tesla Model X crossover is one of the most eagerly awaited vehicles in recent memory.