PARIS Tesla's market value is essentially based on vehicle 'autonomy', said Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday, and Musk added that he "did not expect that Tesla would be at this level" regarding the company's stock market value.

"The value of the company is primarily on the basis of autonomy," Musk told the Paris VivaTech event. "That's really, I think, the main driver of our value."

He has for years missed his targets to achieve full self-driving capability. Tesla says that what it calls “Full Self-Driving” software does not make its vehicle autonomous and requires driver supervision.

"Although I've said this before, I think we will solve autonomy soon," the billionaire said at the event.

"Even if you have a discounted percentage probability of autonomy happening, that is so incredibly valuable."

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Mathieu Rosemain, Gilles Guillaume and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Alistair Bell)