The chief executive officer of the electric car company Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), Elon Musk, stated that the company will have the technology to manufacture a fully autonomous car within five or six years. The end product will be a vehicle that is much less likely to put the lives of occupants and others on the road in danger.

According to Mr. Musk in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, these fully autonomous cars will be at least ten times safer than a person behind the wheel within the time frame of six years. Once the technology for this sort of vehicle is available, it will likely take a few more years to figure out the regulatory issues.

The electric car maker, based in Palo Alto, California, stated that it is developing its own autonomous driving technology for its electric cars, in addition to collaborating with auto suppliers. Mr. Musk state that he foresees more suppliers of self driving car parts to emerge onto the market in the near future.

Tesla plans to do quite a bit of research and development as well, said Elon Musk. However, Mr. Musk did not disclose or mention the names of any development partners.

According to the electric car company’s chief executive officer, the ability for a computer to recognize objects quickly is the largest technological obstacle to fully being able to implement the technology. This technology is called machine vision.

The struggle lies in figuring out how to determine what a whole object could be when only a portion of it is visible tot eh camera or radar. This challenge maintains a key issue for the technology to figure out the correct path and course of action for a car.

In addition to his predictions about autonomous cars, Mr. Musk stated that Tesla Motors expects to begin pulling in solid free cash flow starting in the third quarter of the year 2015. After that point, Tesla will be able to pay for the construction of its planned manufacturing plant for lithium ion batteries without any additional external financing. Earlier this year, Tesla Motors raised a total of $2.3 billion through a convertible bond offering.

The electric car company has announced plans to build a so-called Gigafactory that will manufacture the advanced batteries needs to run its electric vehicles. The entire project could cost as much as $5 billion. Its partner, Panasonic Corp (TYO:6752) has come in on the project. The manufacturing facility will be located in an industrial park that is about 15 miles away from Reno, Nevada.

Most of the free cash flow that Mr. Musk speaks of should come next year as Telsa increases its production of its new sport utility vehicle, known as the Model X. The Model X is supposed to start deliveries sometime early next year in 2015. Mr. Musk has said to multiple media sources that he expects to sell as many as 20,000 units of the electric vehicle if things go especially well.

Mr. Musk also stated that the demand for the company’s current Model S, which starts at a price of $71,000, is nothing to worry about.

The chief executive also stated that it is necessary for the company to have more service centers before it increases sales even more.

While Tesla is not working on any vehicles after the Model X and the Model 3, a planned electric sedan that will feature a lower price tag, Mr. Musk did say that the company has significant news regarding products on the back burner.

 

 

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