This is not the first time Tesla has shown difficulty in working with facts. In 2019, we discovered that the company’s repeated claims that Autopilot reduced crashes by 40 percent were bogus, and in fact, the system may have increased crashes by 59 percent.
That same year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had to tell Tesla it was misleading customers by claiming that NHTSA had labeled the Tesla Model 3 the safest car it had ever tested.
Once more, with feeling
According to Bloomberg, the video that Tesla released on October 20, 2016, was the subject of a lot of revision. Musk’s chaotic management style—laid bare to the world following his recent purchase of Twitter—was on display back then.
On October 11, 2016, Musk told staff that everyone would be required to write a daily log detailing their contributions to the demo; at Twitter, Musk demanded that staff print out their most recent lines of code for review, an order that was quietly rescinded sometime later (presumably once reality set in). Days after Musk issued his daily log demand, a fourth draft was shared with Musk. This time, the CEO thought there were too many cuts and that the demo should appear “like one continuous take.”
In real-world conditions, the performance of Autopilot and the newer, even more controversial “Full-Self Driving” systems remain poor. NHTSA has multiple open investigations into whether Tesla’s driver assistance systems are safe, including one following hundreds of reports of phantom braking behavior, another to determine if Tesla cars are able to detect the presence of motorcyclists after at least two riders have been killed after they were hit by Teslas, and a third into the propensity of Teslas to crash into emergency vehicles.
Criminal charges are a possibility, too. Intentionally deceiving one’s investors or customers remains a crime in the United States, and federal prosecutors have been looking into whether Tesla’s and Musk’s claims about its driver assistance systems meet that bar. Elluswamy’s testimony surely isn’t helping Tesla’s case.