What to make of Tesla’s “best in the world” self-driving silicon?

We have known since 2017 that Tesla was working on its own self-driving hardware. Last October, Elon Musk said it would be available in six months’ time. And, in an unusual example of the high tech visionary correctly predicting the timing of a Tesla product launch, the hardware has indeed arrived. At the Tesla Autonomy Investor Day earlier this week, the company announced it has been shipping cars with in-house developed AI chips that will eventually enable (almost) fully autonomous driving.

At the event, Musk called the IC “the best chip in the world … by a huge margin” for self-driving capability. Considering it was the company’s first attempt at IC design, that would be a remarkable achievement. Let’s have a closer look and see what’s what.