A senior Tesla engineer has revealed in a deposition that the company staged a demonstration video in 2016 to promote its self-driving technology. Ashok Elluswamy, Director of Autopilot software at Tesla, testified that the video was created at the request of CEO Elon Musk as a "demonstration of the system's capabilities." The video, which was shared by Musk on Twitter and remains archived on Tesla's official website, features the tagline "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."
Elluswamy's testimony, which was given as part of a lawsuit against Tesla following a fatal 2018 crash involving a Model X, also stated that the company used 3D mapping on a predetermined route for the demonstration. He added that drivers had to intervene during test runs and that the video's goal was not to accurately depict what was available to customers in 2016, but rather to show what was possible to build into the system.
In the video, Musk had tweeted that the car was driving itself "thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot." However, Elluswamy stated that the demonstration Model X failed to park itself and crashed into a fence. He also acknowledged that drivers could "fool the system" by making it think they were paying attention through steering wheel feedback.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had previously determined that the crash that resulted in the death of the driver, 37-year-old Walter Huang, was caused by his being distracted and the limitations of Autopilot.
Source: Reuters
