Elon Musk predicts self-driving cars will spread across the US this year

Elon Musk said Monday that fully autonomous vehicles operating without human supervision are expected to become far more common across the United States later this year.

Speaking via video link at the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv, Musk said self-driving cars are already operating in three cities in Texas without safety monitors behind the wheel. He said those operations are set to expand nationwide over the coming months.

Musk, who leads Tesla, also offered an ambitious outlook for the future of transportation, predicting that artificial intelligence will dominate road travel within the next decade.

“Five years from now and certainly 10 years from now, probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car,” Musk said.

He added that by the mid-2030s, manually driving a vehicle could become increasingly uncommon.

“It’ll be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car,” he said.

Musk has long promoted autonomous driving as a central part of Tesla’s business strategy. The company has invested heavily in its Full Self-Driving software, which is designed to allow vehicles to navigate roads with minimal human input.

While autonomous technology has advanced significantly, widespread deployment continues to face regulatory, safety and public acceptance challenges. Several companies, including Waymo and Cruise, have been testing robotaxi services in select US cities.

Musk’s latest comments underscore his confidence that self-driving technology is nearing a major breakthrough and could fundamentally reshape transportation in the years ahead.