Elon Musk directed Tesla’s staged 2016 self-driving demonstration, emails reveal. Musk spent days with the Autopilot team to work on the video that claimed the car can fully drive itself.
Elon Musk oversaw creation of staged 2016 Autopilot video that promoted self-driving tech that the cars did not have – like stopping at red lights
Tesla autopilot software director testified that 2016 video to promote self-driving technology was STAGED – and it did not have capabilities like stopping at red lights
- Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, testified in a July deposition in a lawsuit for a 2018 fatal crash involving a former Apple engineer
- He testified the 2016 video used to promote self-driving technology was staged
- It’s the first time a Tesla employee has detailed how the video was produced
- The video, which was promoted by Elon Musk, and remains on the website, shows capabilities like stopping and accelerating that the system does not have
A 2016 video that Tesla used to promote its self-driving technology was staged to show capabilities – like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light – that the system did not have, according to newly released testimony by a senior engineer.
The video, which remains archived on Tesla’s website, was released in October 2016 and promoted on Twitter by Chief Executive Elon Musk as evidence that ‘Tesla drives itself.’
But the Model X was not driving itself with technology Tesla had deployed, Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, said in the transcript of a July deposition taken as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla for a 2018 fatal crash involving a former Apple engineer.
The previously unreported testimony by Elluswamy represents the first time a Tesla employee has confirmed and detailed how the video was produced.
A 2016 video Tesla used to promote its self-driving technology was staged to show capabilities like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light. The system did not have those capabilities, Tesla’s director of Autopilot software testified
Twitter CEO Elon Musk (left) promoted the 2016 video as evidence that ‘Tesla drives itself,’ but Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, said video was staged
The video carries a tagline saying: ‘The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.’
Elluswamy said Tesla’s Autopilot team set out to engineer and record a ‘demonstration of the system’s capabilities’ at the request of Musk.
