Freedom of expression is an important issue for Elon Musk. However, when it comes to manipulated videos to explain that the Tesla Vision or Autopilot system is failing in front of a child, that’s too much.
TESLA MAG PUBLISHES VIEWPOINT – S. Baker
Wholemars Catalog dismantles the theory
Why is the video that takes the model down fake?
The director of the video deliberately placed two rows of cones so the car couldn’t go around the child (which it normally would if it couldn’t stop). He also showed the video at the lowest resolution allowed by YouTube…and there’s a reason for that.
You can see (but not read because it’s too blurry) a long alert message on the Tesla’s screen – it probably says Autopilot is on – then, when the car accelerates, another message appears. poster – what could it be?
Well, I’ll tell you what it says – it says Autopilot doesn’t brake when you step on the accelerator pedal.
So it’s almost certain that this guy didn’t appreciate the car actually stopping – so he started it again, faster, and the car went around the kid – so he placed a bunch of cones and the car went ALWAYS performed emergency braking and stopped – and then, for the video he showed, he put his foot on the accelerator to override the self-driving – and drove the car into the dummy himself!
Then he saw the offending warnings on the screen and posted the video at such a low resolution that it is impossible to play them.
Unfortunately – for him – several people have replicated what he did – and shown the actual messages that would be displayed – and they perfectly match the length of those in the video.
This guy is running for US Senate and one of his main arguments is to ban Tesla Autopilot.
Oh – and for your information – he also owns a competing company trying to create software for self-driving cars.
It is simply diabolical.
I don’t know if Elon is right that this video should be banned, but I think it’s best that it stays there and is shown alongside all the debunking videos, so that this scammer is shown as it is.
Autopilot is 12 times less likely to cause a fatal accident than a classic car… 1 death per billion kilometers driven rather than 12.5 per billion for classic cars.
There are a million Teslas on America’s roads – driving about 15,000 miles each a year. That’s 15 billion miles…and that means about 13-14 people are alive today thanks to this software.
So far, no pedestrians have been injured by a Tesla in AutoPilot mode.