A year ago, Tesla Inc. set up a hastily organized conference call between Elon Musk and reporters. Tesla had something big to announce—big enough for the chief executive to open the floor to questions. That doesn’t happen very often.
What followed wasn’t so much the unveiling of a new product as a plan for a product. Tesla’s driver-assistance platform, Autopilot, was about to begin a transformation to fully autonomous driving. Every Tesla would come with eight cameras, radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and a Nvidia Corp. supercomputer. Once testing and regulatory approval were complete, Musk said, the car would be able to drive entirely by itself.