If you own a Tesla, or if you enjoy one, or if you’re thinking about buying one, or if you share public roads with Tesla cars, you may need to watch the new documentary “Elon Musk’s Crash Course. “
Airing Friday on FX and Hulu, the spooky 75-minute display highlights the lingering risks of Tesla’s automated driving technologies, the company’s lax culture of protection, P. T. The Barnum-style hype and weak protection regulators that don’t seem to care.
Solidly informed and perfectly accurate (I’ve covered the company since 2016 and can attest to its veracity), the project, which is part of the ongoing “New York Times Presents” series, could be an ancient artifact of what-hell-variety-were-thinking.
The midline is the story of Joshua Brown, a rabid Tesla fan and a daring techno-geek beheaded when his Autopilot-on-car Tesla drove at full speed on a Florida highway the trailer of a semi-trailer in 2016.
Regardless of the classes he learned at Tesla, they didn’t save him from almost the same fatal accident, also in Florida, 3 years later. Since then, an unknown number of Autopilot-related twists of fate have occurred, unknown to any Tesla, who has the ability. track your cars over wireless connections, because the government procedure of collecting decades-old fate spin statistics is not suitable for the virtual age. the appearance of the road.
Here are 4 key topics from the “Elon Musk Crash Course”.
1. La Tesla’s Autopilot feature has been properly tested, according to former employees
According to several former members of the autopilot progression team featured in the documentary, the strain of temporarily offering consumers autopilot features, in one position or not, is relentless. “There is no in-depth study phase” like at other driverless automakers, says one engineering program manager, with “consumers necessarily replacing professional check drivers. “
The testimony of those developers is a notable feature of “Crash Course”. It’s rare to hear tesla experts because “free speech absolutist” Musk forces workers to sign strict confidentiality agreements and enforces them with a vast army of well-paid lawyers. .
When Brown’s car passed under the truck, the company said, the formula mistook the side of the trailer for the bright sky and blamed the camera’s supplier. Crossing a road from an airlift, software engineer Raven Jiang says, “The learning rate was not high. It was personally difficult for me to keep the promise. “
The media talking about Theranos’ fraud at the time, which sparked “introspection” for Jiang, who resigned for another job. Akshat Patel, head of the autopilot engineering program, echoes Jiang’s concern. If anyone sees Tesla as “an example of clinical integrity, public accountability, and reasoned, methodical engineering,” Patel says, “that’s not the case. “
2. Totally Teslas are more science fiction than reality
Recently, Tesla is touting a $12,000 feature called Full Self-Driving, which is rarely fully autonomous. There are no fully autonomous cars available to individual buyers.
But that hasn’t stopped Musk from claiming, year after year, that Teslas are just around the corner.
Clip after clip on “Crash Course” highlights his false claims.
2014: “No hands, no feet, nothing,” he says behind the wheel of a Tesla. “He can do almost anything. “
2015: Musk tells a crowd that he is “pretty sure” that autonomy will be achieved within 3 years, to the point where “you might be asleep all the time. “
2016: “I think we are less than two years away from full autonomy,” he told journalist Kara Swisher at a conference.
2017: “We are still on track to cross the country from Los Angeles to New York until the end of the year, in a fully automated way. “
2018: “By the end of next year, autonomous driving will be at least one hundred percent to 200 percent safer than a person. “
2019: Buying a car that doesn’t come with fully autonomous driving is “like buying a horse. “
2022: Wearing a black cowboy hat and sunglasses: “The car will take you where you finally need 10 times safer than if you drove it yourself. This will absolutely revolutionize the world. “
The document explains how Tesla manipulated a widely shared video of a Tesla driving through the streets of Palo Alto a few months after Brown’s death.
It’s worth noting that autopilot and the gains from full autonomous driving are largely to blame for achieving the payout goals that made Musk so rich.
3. Musk enthusiasts are holding back. Even in front of the camera.
Among his 94 million fans on Twitter, Musk has attracted a rabid fan base, to whom “Crash Course” rarely gestures. (One tweet reads, “Elon is lord. “) But the documentary does not explain in intensity why so many. other people seem so captivated by her. This is the box of speculation, or perhaps of psychology.
Still, there are a few selection quotes from Tesla enthusiasts and Musk fans looking for interviews, probably oblivious to irony:
“I think Elon will make a dent in the world. “
“Any company would kill for having that point of fanaticism and devotion. “
“You have the resources to do things that would be irresponsible or otherwise silly. “
4. Regulations are part of the problem
Halfway through “Crash Course,” the audience begins to wonder: Where are the protection regulators?
Excellent question. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated Brown’s crash, decided that Autopilot overlooked the wide appearance of a truck in front of the car, and yet decided there were no defects, and gave Tesla a pass.
“I’m a little stunned,” New York Times reporter Neal Boudette told the camera. “The formula couldn’t see the semi-trailer?
An NHTSA communications official at the time tried to explain, “It’s a bit confusing and almost counterintuitive, right?The autopilot didn’t even have interaction to verify and avoid the accident. and each and every one of the clashes in each and every case.
The fact is also that several senior NHTSA officials in the Obama and Trump administrations subsequently accepted jobs in the driverless car industry.
The NHTSA under Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are hardening with Tesla on data, and their investigations continue.
Meanwhile, a high-speed Tesla crashed into a road structure in Newport Beach on May 12. Three other people died. Was autopilot or full autonomous driving involved?Police are investigating the incident and NHTSA has opened an investigation.
This story gave the impression in the Los Angeles Times.
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