Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that its vehicles will be completely autonomous by the end of 2020 and that it is already "very close" to getting the requirements of Level 5 autonomy, which requires no input from the driver. 

"I'm extremely confident that Level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen, and I think will happen very quickly," Musk said in a video message at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, Automotive News reports. "I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for Level 5 autonomy complete this year."

The SAE defines Level 5 autonomy as complete vehicle autonomy that requires zero human oversight from the beginning to the end. Tech giants for years have invested billions of dollars for the development of the type of technology, but there hasn't been a full-proof Level 5 system available for consumers still. Experts believe it could take decades before the world gets to see this level of tech. 

But, Musk has always been bold about his claims and has always been very vocal about Tesla's goal to achieve full autonomy. His ambition to achieve it started in 2016 when he announced that all Teslas produced from that year forward would have hardware fit to handle fully autonomous driving. 

The Full Self-Driving option has been available since then, but while Tesla owners have been given functional updates, all they have at this point is Autopilot, the company's suite of active and passive driver tech that would make the vehicle autonomous for varying stretches of time.

Over the years, Tesla continued to beef up its Autopilot system, adding lane-change tech and most recently, the ability to recognize traffic signals. These are all great but are still remarkably far from the SAE's autonomy scale.

And there's also the controversy surrounding full autonomous tech and even Autopilot. There have been several incidences wherein Autopilot had been blamed for crashes and deaths. Most recently, reports lay the blame for two fatal crashes at the feet of the driver, Tesla, and regulators, essentially saying all involved parties need to step it up.

Musk's enthusiasm is understood, and to some extent, well-received but it's not the first time he happily announced autonomy and made claims that such technology would arrive soon. In April, he posted on Twitter about Tesla's full self-driving system, saying everything was on track for a 2020 release. However, he also mentioned problems with deployment due to regulatory hurdles.