Tesla Motors plans to make its cars capable of fully autonomous¹ driving by the end of next year, setting an aggressive deadline that could put it ahead of other carmakers in the race to put robot cars on the road.

特斯拉汽车(Tesla Motors)计划使其汽车最迟在明年底能够完全自主驾驶，从而设定一个咄咄逼人的截止日期，有望使该公司比其他汽车制造商更早推出能够上路的机器人汽车。

Elon Musk², chief executive, said on Wednesday that his company’s electric cars would be able to drive coast-to-coast in the US — “all the way from home in Los Angeles and dropping you in Times Square by the end of next year and then parking itself, without the need for a single touch”.

首席执行官埃隆.马斯克(Elon Musk)周三表示，他的公司的电动车将能够从美国的西海岸行驶到东海岸——“最迟在明年底，从洛杉矶的家，一路把你送到（纽约市）时代广场，然后自己泊车，不需要你碰任何东西”。

The news that the US electric car company is pushing ahead to full self-driving cars comes despite the death of a Tesla owner in a crash in the US earlier this year while his car was under its own control, using what the company calls “Autopilot” mode. Tesla also faces a lawsuit³ in China over a second death allegedly linked to its current driver-assistance, though it has denied its technology was at fault.

这家美国电动汽车公司宣布推进全自动驾驶汽车计划之际，今年早些时候美国一名特斯拉车主死于撞车事故，当时他的汽车在自动控制状态，使用该公司所称的“自动辅助驾驶”(Autopilot)。特斯拉还在中国面临第二起死亡事故诉讼，据称事故与该公司的驾驶员辅助技术有关，但该公司否认其技术在那起事故中有任何过错。

The US fatality⁴ had already led Tesla to revamp its self-driving technology, giving more prominence⁵ to signals from its vehicles’ on-board radar⁶ systems rather than relying so heavily on the front-facing camera. The accident followed the failure of the car’s camera to identify the side of a white truck against a bright sky.

美国发生的死亡已促使特斯拉改良其自动驾驶技术，让车载雷达系统的信号发挥更大作用，而不是如此严重依赖前置摄像头。那起事故的起因是车上的摄像头未能在明亮天空的背景下识别一辆白色卡车的侧面。

On Wednesday, he criticised journalists for what he claimed was excessive media coverage⁷ of the US fatality. “If you effectively dissuade⁸ people from buying autonomous vehicles, you’re killing⁹ people,” he warned. “Paucity¹⁰ of media coverage of the 1.2m people who die each year in crashes does not reflect well on the media, it really doesn’t.”

周三，马斯克批评记者，称媒体对上述美国死亡事故的报道多得过分。“如果你实际上劝阻人们购买自主驾驶车辆，你就是在害人，”他警告说，“媒体对每年死于道路交通事故的120万人报道很少，这对媒体的形象不利，真的很不利。”