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WTF?! Remember the video Tesla released in 2016 that demonstrated the Autopilot driver assistance system, including its ability to stop at a red light and start moving when it turns green? According to Ashok Eluswamy, director of Tesla’s Autopilot software, the video was staged.
In recent testimony in the case against Tesla filed by the family of Wei “Walter” Huang, who died in 2018 when his Model X crashed into a guardrail while on Autopilot, Elluswami said the video’s intent was “not to accurately portray what was available to customers in 2016 … He had to show what could be built into the system.”
The video opens with a tagline that reads: “The man in the driver’s seat is only here for legal reasons. He does nothing. The car drives itself.”
The clip shows how to Tesla Model X stopped at junctions and obeyed traffic signals, although Elluswami admitted that at the time Autopilot “did not have the ability to control the traffic lights”. He also said the demonstration was “specific to some predetermined route” rather than using data from the car’s cameras and sensors. “Additional pre-prepared information was used for driving,” he said.
The video was created using 3D mapping along a predetermined route from a house in Menlo Park, California, to Palo Alto. Elluswamy said drivers stepped in to take control during test runs, and while trying to demonstrate the car’s ability to park itself, it crashed into a fence in a Tesla parking lot.
Elluswamy said the video was shot after the Tesla boss Elon Musk asked the Autopilot team to develop a “demonstration of the system’s capabilities.” Musk later promoted the video on Twitter, boasting that “Tesla drives itself (no human input) through city streets to the freeway, then to the streets, and then finds a parking space.”
Tesla drives itself (no human intervention at all) through city streets to the freeway to the streets, then finds a parking space https://t.co/V2T7KGMPBo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2016
In 2021, the New York Times reported that Tesla used a pre-planned route in the video and during filming the car crashed.
Andrew McDevitt, representing Huang’s wife, told Reuters the video was “obviously misleading if you show it without any qualifications or an asterisk.”
After Huang’s Tesla crashed on the 101 Freeway in Mountain View, California, in March 2018, the car’s manufacturer claimed Huang was responsible for keeping his hands off the wheel despite repeated warnings from the car to regain control. However, the National Transportation Safety Board said Huang had repeatedly complained to friends and family that the Tesla frequently veered off that particular crash barrier.
Tesla is facing several lawsuits related to its Autopilot software. There was more controversy last year when the company announced it was phasing out ultrasonic sensors in its cars as part of the transition to Tesla Vision, its camera-based autopilot system, after it had previously phased out radar systems.
WTF?! Remember the video Tesla released in 2016 that demonstrated the Autopilot driver assistance system, including its ability to stop at a red light and start moving when it turns green? According to Ashok Eluswamy, director of Tesla’s Autopilot software, the video was staged.
In recent testimony in the case against Tesla filed by the family of Wei “Walter” Huang, who died in 2018 when his Model X crashed into a guardrail while on Autopilot, Elluswami said the video’s intent was “not to accurately portray what was available to customers in 2016 … He had to show what could be built into the system.”
The video opens with a tagline that reads: “The man in the driver’s seat is only here for legal reasons. He does nothing. The car drives itself.”
The clip shows how to Tesla Model X stopped at junctions and obeyed traffic signals, although Elluswami admitted that at the time Autopilot “did not have the ability to control the traffic lights”. He also said the demonstration was “specific to some predetermined route” rather than using data from the car’s cameras and sensors. “Additional pre-prepared information was used for driving,” he said.
The video was created using 3D mapping along a predetermined route from a house in Menlo Park, California, to Palo Alto. Elluswamy said drivers stepped in to take control during test runs, and while trying to demonstrate the car’s ability to park itself, it crashed into a fence in a Tesla parking lot.
Elluswamy said the video was shot after the Tesla boss Elon Musk asked the Autopilot team to develop a “demonstration of the system’s capabilities.” Musk later promoted the video on Twitter, boasting that “Tesla drives itself (no human input) through city streets to the freeway, then to the streets, and then finds a parking space.”
Tesla drives itself (no human intervention at all) through city streets to the freeway to the streets, then finds a parking space https://t.co/V2T7KGMPBo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2016
In 2021, the New York Times reported that Tesla used a pre-planned route in the video and during filming the car crashed.
Andrew McDevitt, representing Huang’s wife, told Reuters the video was “obviously misleading if you show it without any qualifications or an asterisk.”
After Huang’s Tesla crashed on the 101 Freeway in Mountain View, California, in March 2018, the car’s manufacturer claimed Huang was responsible for keeping his hands off the wheel despite repeated warnings from the car to regain control. However, the National Transportation Safety Board said Huang had repeatedly complained to friends and family that the Tesla frequently veered off that particular crash barrier.
Tesla is facing several lawsuits related to its Autopilot software. There was more controversy last year when the company announced it was phasing out ultrasonic sensors in its cars as part of the transition to Tesla Vision, its camera-based autopilot system, after it had previously phased out radar systems.
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