“Tesla drives itself (no human intervention at all) through city streets, a freeway and streets, then finds a parking space”.
This is what Elon Musk wrote when Tesla in October 2016 published a video (see the video further down in the article) of a Tesla Model X driving itself.
Fatal accident
A year and a half later, Walter Huang (38), an engineer at Apple, relied heavily on Tesla’s autopilot capabilities when he played video games on the mobile phone while the car drove off by itself.
The car crashed on the highway and caught fire. Huang was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later.
Huang’s family has sued Tesla.
The head of autopilot software at Tesla, Ashok Elluswarmy, was questioned last summer in connection with the collection of evidence, but only now has his certificate become publicly known, writes Reuters.
He says that the promo video in 2016 was recorded at the request of Elon Musk, and that the aim was to demonstrate the autopilot system’s capabilities.
Crashed while recording
The video starts with the text “The person in the driver’s seat is only in place for legal reasons. He does nothing. The car drives itself”.
But the drive was staged, says the Tesla top.
Drivers broke in to take control of the car during the test drive, says Elluswarmy. When they tried to show that the car could park without a driver, the car crashed into a fence in Tesla’s parking lot, he added.
– The purpose of the video was not to show exactly what was available to customers in 2016, but to portray what was possible to put into the systems, says the Tesla manager in the testimony that Reuters has seen.
Asked directly if the video shows what kind of autopilot system was available at the time, Elluswarmy replied “it doesn’t”.
“Clearly misleading”
Attorney Andrew McDevitt, who represents Huang’s widow and accepted Elluswarmy’s testimony, told Reuters that “It’s obviously misleading to promote that video without a warning or notice.
The United States Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded in 2022 that Huang’s fatal accident was most likely caused by a combination of the autopilot’s limitation and Huang not following properly.
According to Elluswarmy, drivers can “trick the system” by making the car think they are following based on feedback from the steering wheel, even though they are not actually following. He also points out that he has not seen any safety problems with the autopilot when the drivers follow along.
Neither Elon Musk, Tesla nor Elluswarmy have responded to Reuters’ inquiries, but Tesla has warned its customers that they must keep their hands on the wheel and have control over the car even if they use the autopilot.
Tesla’s technology is there to help with steering, gearing, speed and lane changes, but this “does not make the car self-driving”, the company points out on its website.
In July last year Tesla was ordered to pay $10.5 million in damages to the parents of an 18-year-old who died when he drove a Tesla at 116 miles per hour and crashed into a concrete wall.
