According to Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software, Tesla’s 2016 Autopilot demonstration video was fake, showing the system stopping at a red light and starting again when the light turned green. Elluswamy made statements under oath during the deposition of a lawsuit filed against Tesla following the death of his Apple engineer Walter Huang in 2018.
The video, posted in October 2016 and still available on Tesla’s website, reads, “I’m sitting in the driver’s seat for legal reasons. He’s not doing anything. The car is self-driving.” I’m driving with,” begins with the caption. Next, a Tesla Model X is seen leaving the garage and the driver getting into the car as the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” begins playing.
The heavily edited video shows Model X driving around and stopping at intersections and red lights. All the while, the person sitting in the driver’s seat does not have his hand near the steering wheel, but he does not have his hand on it. Upon arriving at Tesla’s facility, the human leaves the Model X. Model X departs to park, avoiding being run over by a pedestrian in the process.
At the time, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Publish videos on your Twitter account, tells the world, “Tesla drives itself (without human input), traversing city roads, highway-to-road, and finding parking.” Musk added, “Eight cameras, 12 sonar and radar are all mounted on his flash and his body color remains beautiful.”
Since then, Tesla has removed both radar and ultrasonic sensors from its cars. Probably to reduce material costs for automakers. The loss of a forward-looking radar sensor and numerous complaints about the Phantom’s brakes prompted the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to launch an investigation. This is his one of several NHTSA investigations into Tesla’s propensity to collide with various drivers with his assists.
But before being promoted to head of all Autopilot software development in 2019, the Model X in the video was pre-programmed to drive from Menlo Park to Palo Alto, according to Elluswamy, who was a senior software engineer in 2019. was
In his testimony, Ellswamy was quoted by Reuters as saying, “The intention of the video was not to accurately depict what was available to customers in 2016. It was to depict what could be incorporated into the system. I did.” A 3D map was used to pre-program a route, including where to stop, and the Tesla crashed into a fence during an automated parking demonstration, said Elluswamy.
In March 2016, a fatal accident occurred on Highway 101 in Mountain View, California. Juan’s Model X, which was driving on autopilot, hit the highway at over 70 mph and crashed into her attenuator. Tesla blamed Juan for the crash, claiming he wasn’t paying attention.However, Huang had repeatedly complained to his friends and family in the past that his vehicle had a tendency to veer on that particular crash barrier, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The Board is responsible for Tesla, CalTrans, and National Highway Traffic Safety Administrationall of which share responsibility for the death, said in 2020.
