Tesla: Autopilot boss admits to faking promo video

Tesla’s Autopilot is once again causing problems. This time, however, it’s not a technical error. Rather, the leading figure behind the software for full self-driving (FSD), Ashok Elluswamy, was carried away by an explosive statement in court. Here, he admitted that a promotional video for the Autopilot feature of its fleet of electric cars was a big fake.

Tesla in promotional video did not drive itself

Once again, Tesla is having to pull in negative headlines. After we reported just a few days ago that after the IG-Metall now also openly discussed in federal politics about the bad conditions in the Gigafactory in Grünheide, now also a large-scale fake to the Autopilot came to light. The carmaker has always been criticized for its FSD. As recently as October 2022, Tesla was accused of misleading advertising for its self-driving mode. Now skeptics of the technology have received official confirmation of their concerns. And it’s from the highest levels. Thus Ashok Elluswamy, Director of Autopilot Software, has confirmed in a court hearing that a promo video on Autopilot had been faked.

The background was the tragic accident of Walter Huang. The young Apple employee had an accident in 2018 in the US state of California when he was using the Autopilot of his Tesla Model X. Now the corresponding court hearing took place, which of course did not miss Elluswamy as the brains behind the software. That’s according to a report from the Verge. The falsification of the video gains even more explosiveness when one considers Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s handling of the matter. Thus, in 2016, the controversial tech billionaire assured on the short message service Twitter that the video in question was not a fake and that everything was real.

Vehicle was programmed in advance

Strictly speaking, the Tesla in the promo video drove itself without a driver. Not only was it able to avoid obstacles on the road. On top of that, the car recognized traffic light phases and stopped or accelerated as needed. Of course, this seemed like pure magic, especially in 2016. Behind it, however, was a cheap trick, as Elluswamy has now admitted. After all, the vehicle did not detect obstacles and traffic lights with the help of its sensors and cameras. Instead, the electric car was programmed in advance so that it simply had to reel off the procedure on the route. Furthermore, the video advertised functions that were not even available in the Autopilot software in 2016. For example, it was not even capable of recognizing red or green traffic lights. This fake could now have serious consequences for the electric car manufacturer.