STORY: :: Chris Kirkham, Automotive enterprise reporte

"The big promise Elon Musk has made about Full Self-Driving technology is that it will soon turn every Tesla on the road into a driverless vehicle. It’s a big reason why the company is valued at about $1.5 trillion —five times that of any other automaker."

"We found after talking to 10 former Tesla employees who helped train its self-driving software that Tesla’s technology is still far off from what Musk is promising.

"Seven of those employees said they wouldn’t trust the software to drive them anywhere. While at Tesla, the employees reviewed videos showing Teslas equipped with the Full Self-Driving software striking dogs, cats and wildlife like deer, as well as close calls with pedestrians including children. Some saw Teslas using the software fail to pull over for approaching emergency vehicles, fail to stop for school buses and drive into a construction zone, nearly striking workers. The vehicles using the technology often sped. One former employee said vehicles using a Full Self-Driving mode called “Mad Max” would go 20 to 30 miles per hour over the speed limit.

"Even though Tesla, according to the employees, knew about these deficiencies, Musk pushed forward with the launch of a robotaxi network in Austin, Texas last June. Our reporting shows that employees worked to train the software on specific streets and intersections so that the demonstration would go smoothly. They said this kind of training is impossible to do on a wide scale. Yet Musk has said Tesla’s technology “works anywhere,” and doesn’t require mapping or programming the software for it to operate in specific places.

"Another interesting thing we found is that Tesla is using some fuzzy math to claim that its Full Self-Driving technology is either 10 times safer or, more recently, seven times safer than the average human driver. We found after talking to 11 traffic safety experts that Tesla is comparing apples and oranges to do this math. It’s counting only the worst of its crashes, the ones where airbags go off, and comparing them to a set of federal data that includes more minor accidents. This distorts Tesla's safety record and makes its technology look better than it actually is.

"By contrast, Waymo, the U.S. leader in driverless taxis, takes a more rigorous approach. It publishes its safety stats in peer-reviewed journals and says it adjusts for the specific roads and conditions its vehicles actually operate in.

"We sent Tesla a detailed list of questions for this report, but got no response. In the past, Tesla has defended its Full-Self Driving technology, saying it could save lives and prevent injuries. The traffic-safety researchers who spoke to Reuters said they viewed Tesla’s claims about the safety of Full-Self Driving as marketing rather than a serious investigation into a critical safety issue."

Posted by: AAngeles/NET25 News