Tesla CEO Elon Musk dangles $13,000 incentive to employees to be ‘full self-driving’ beta testers

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SAN FRANCISCO – Elon Musk has asked Tesla Inc. employees to test what the company has billed as full self-driving power and bans $ 13,000 in savings to entice them to help.

Musk wrote in an e-mail from Bloomberg News that Tesla needed about 100 employees to participate in an internal test program that was linked to the rollout of the full self-steering ability. Any employee who buys a Tesla and agrees to share 300 to 400 hours of driving feedback with the company's Autopilot team by the end of next year does not have to pay for full self-control – a savings of $ 8,000 – or for a premium interior that normally costs $ 5000, wrote Musk.

"This is offered on a first-come, first-served basis," he said in the e-mail. "Given the excitement around this, I expect it to be fully registered by noon or at 1:00 pm."

Representatives of Tesla have not responded to requests for comments on the e-mail.

Musk announced nearly two years ago that all cars of the company would be offered with the hardware needed to fully drive themselves, with only testing and legal approvals in the way. A failure followed by two major partners – Mobileye and Nvidia Corp. – and Tesla must still enable customers to activate the full self-driving opportunity for which they have paid thousands of dollars.

The team behind Tesla & # 39; s driver assistance system In a violent war Autopilot has gained experience with the technical talent needed to develop autonomous vehicles. Jim Keller, head of the program, left the company in April and is now with Intel Corp., which has acquired Mobileye.

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Musk once vowed to demonstrate a cross-country journey from Los Angeles to New York by the end of 2017, a timeline that keeps slipping away. Musk said that the Tesla self-propelled chip technology, which had been in operation for three years, finally came to fruition.