A software engineer at Tesla Ashok Elluswamy has called out the automaker for the false advertisement of its self-driving feature.
The engineer in a recent revelation disclosed that a 2016 video posted in October by Tesla, which promoted its self-driving technology was fake.
According to reports, the video is still on Tesla’s website, which the company used as evidence to customers that the car can drive itself, which was titled “full self-driving hardware on all Teslas”.
Meanwhile, the engineer insist that the video was fake, noting that Tesla used a 3D mapping on a predetermined route from a house in Menlo Park, California to the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto.
He revealed that drivers had to intervene to take control during test runs while noting that there were scenes not revealed because the test car crashed into a fence in Tesla’s parking lot.
Ashok disclosed that the intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016, but rather it was to portray what was possible to build into the system.
The software engineer was hired after Musk put out a tweet looking for candidates for the autopilot team. In his July disposition which was taken as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla for a fatal 2018 crash, he disclosed that the company’s CEO Elon Musk wanted the autopilot team to record a demonstration of the system’s capabilities.
Investors King understands that Tesla has come under increasing criticism and regulatory scrutiny for its autopilot systems lately. It is a known fact that many automakers now equip their vehicles with driving assistance features to enhance users driving, but Tesla has gone a step further by claiming that an optional version of its autopilot technology provides full self-driving capabilities.
Meanwhile, there are claims that Tesla’s optional full self-driving capability is still in “beta”, meaning that it is not yet considered a final product.
False claims by Tesla are now a subject of probe as the U.S. department of justice in 2021, began to look into Tesla autopilot claims. In 2022, the company’s false claims of autopilot spurred lawmakers in California to pass a bill that would bar Tesla and other automakers from using the term “full self-driving”.
