The famous video used to show off Tesla self-drive technology in 2016 was staged, according to engineers.
The capabilities include the Model X stopping at a red light and accelerating at the green light, but it doesn’t work like that. The video became a Tesla phenomenon, with the founder and now CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, promoting the video, “Tesla drives itself.”
The video is still in Tesla’s archives, captioning: “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”
However, the biggest plot twist is that the Model X was not driving itself with technology from Tesla, Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Telsa, said in a transcript that was taken as evidence from a July 2018 fatal car crash.
The unreported testimony is the first time a Tesla employee has confirmed that the video was staged.
“The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016,” Elluswamy said, according to Reuters. “It was to portray what was possible to build into the system..”
When in actuality, drivers had to take control during test runs. The car crashed into a fence one time after the driver failed to take control.
Tesla had faced major backlash for its Autopilot feature, with Elluswamy saying drivers could “fool the system,” making a Tesla system believe that they were paying attention based on steering wheel feedback when really they weren’t. The Autopilot system has been responsible for multiple car crashes.
The Tesla Vehicle Safety reported that 273 cars that crashed in 2021 were from the Autopilot system.
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