Deng Simiao originated from the Vice-Driving Temple
Smart Car Reference | Official number AI4Auto
The latest news, Tesla's 2016 self-driving promotional video fraud incident, Musk not only knows, but also personally participates.
The first three sentences of the video, dictated by Musk himself:
"The driver did not operate the car the whole time because the regulations required him to sit in the driver's seat, and Tesla drove himself."
Even the self-driving ability shown by the video, Musk bluntly said internally, will be realized.
However, when the external passion is forwarded, the tense is blurred:
The Tesla drove itself from the city to the highway until it found a parking space.
And the seemingly silky and continuous video was actually changed and changed again and again at Musk's request.
Some netizens were angry after learning the truth:
It was watching that video that made me decide to buy a Tesla, and now you're telling me it's a scam? Is it an illusion? I'm going to get my money back!
Musk directly guided and participated in the whole process
The video, released in 2016, has been urgently removed from Tesla's official website — until the public opinion exploded a few days ago.
More than 3 minutes of video clips, Tesla showed what we now often call "three-domain integration" high-level automatic driving capabilities, that is, including parking, highways, and urban roads.
At that time, in 2016, Musk publicized that Tesla already had such capabilities.
Now, however, an email has revealed the truth behind it.
According to Bloomberg, during the preparation of the video, Musk personally wrote an email to the Tesla Autopilot team on October 11, 2016, called "Top Priority."
In this email, Musk mainly stated the following points.
First of all, take this video very seriously:
I just want to be clear that everyone's priority is to make a stunning Autopilot demo video. Because it's a demo video, you can hardcode some places (put the variable variable as a fixed value), and then we'll populate it with production code after the OTA update.
Musk even asked everyone on the Autopilot team to keep a diary of their contributions to the video, which he would read for himself.
Second, Musk explained in the email why he made this video:
I want to tell the world that this is something that cars will be able to do, not that the owner will experience it immediately.
However, the three sentences he personally dictated at the beginning of the video, as well as the caliber of the external audience on Twitter, did not add additional explanation.
It is worth mentioning that when the Autopilot staff submitted the fourth version of the video, Musk was still not satisfied - "There are too many jump shots, and the presentation video needs to give a continuous feeling." ”
The exposure of the internal email also confirmed that Musk not only knew about this promotional video in 2016, but also personally guided and participated in the whole process.
Now, with the counterfeiting incident fermenting, Musk and Tesla face an even greater crisis of trust.
Because the fraud was exposed, the core was related to a fatal car accident, and the relevant departments believed that Tesla's 2016 video misled the owner, and later a Model X owner unfortunately crashed and died during the use of Tesla's automatic driving.
Tesla director testified: propaganda video fraud
Just a few days ago, this Tesla self-driving promotional video was confirmed to the court by Ashok Elluswamy, director of its own self-driving software.
Not only overfitting, but also directly stitching and modifying to delete clips such as crashes, disguising everything as it looks perfect.
First of all, the entire route from a private home in Menlo Park, California, to the California headquarters of Tesla in Palo Alto, has long been modeled and exists in the system.
In other words, the whole test is actually an "open-book" exam, and the Autopilot system knows what route it wants to take and how to go.
The so-called "pilot" function does not exist.
Second, in the process of modeling the entire line, the key information on the road may have been marked. Including traffic signs, traffic lights, large curvature curves, potholes on the road, and more.
In this way, the ability of the entire system to recognize and make decisions through sensor data perception, which is the core capability of what we often call autonomous driving AI algorithms, is also questionable at least in 2016.
In fact, the engineer confessed that the driver had intervened to take over the entire test, but it was later cut out during the video.
Ironically, in the external video, the beginning even in black and white "the driver did not drive the whole time".
Tesla even said that there are people in the driver's seat, completely out of compliance needs - the implication is that it can actually be unmanned.
This is hardly a crazy hint to car owners and potential car owners - almost explicitly.
Finally, in the parking scene, the director of Tesla's Autopilot software directly told the truth, the car hit during the shooting and hit the guardrail of the parking lot of Tesla's headquarters...
However, he said that shooting a video to show "Tesla's full self-driving ability" was a task personally assigned by Musk, so in the end, through various means and methods, he came up with such a result.
The video went live to this day, and it is an important material for Tesla to promote its technical capabilities and the prospects of autonomous driving.
As well as the fact that there are no flaws in the video, "fully autonomous driving" is emphasized, and various factual situations during the filming that prove that the system's capabilities are not yet sufficient are not mentioned. And it has never been explained that this video has a lot of "fake" elements.
However, the Tesla director, who testified in court, also gave his own statement.
He believes that the video was not made at the time to promise users the features delivered in 2016, but to show what kind of functions Tesla will equip the vehicle in future research and development.
This is also the method explained in Musk's internal email -
Demonstrate competence, do not commit to delivery time, engage the audience.
This method is also used by some die-hard Musk fans and Tesla owners: it is a promotional video, which naturally has to be perfect to the outside world. Many advertisements for consumer electronics are also fictional, forged or even sci-fi.
However, the key thing is that the car is different from other products, and the car is closely related to the life safety carried on the car.
Musk and Tesla undoubtedly conveyed the ability to "achieve" such end-to-end full autonomous driving in the video, but more importantly, they conveyed the impression of "Tesla has such technical capabilities" to users and audiences, not only with consumer guidance, but also when using AutoPilot and FSD, they will also think that "Tesla has such technical capabilities", not cautious enough, too relieved, and finally a tragedy occurs.
Mr. Huang, an Apple Silicon Valley engineer, is an example, because he joined Apple, he happily bought the best Model X at that time as a reward, from Tesla publicity to sales, all emphasized to him that Tesla is different because of its leading self-driving capabilities.
Finally, at night in 2018, while driving home, he drove AutoPilot with confidence, not knowing what road conditions he encountered, and the car crashed and died on Highway 101.
The accident soon came to a preliminary conclusion: Tesla cooperated with the police to collect background data, showing that the owner failed to take over in time, and the responsibility lay with the owner. Even though Mr. Huang's family continued to complain at that time, believing that Tesla's false and excessive publicity on automatic driving misled Mr. Huang and caused the final tragedy, it did not change the verdict.
Only later, with the increase in Tesla's deliveries, more and more accidents related to automatic driving, and a new round of investigation after the US official began to merge, the accident was raised again.
Standing in court, Tesla's director of software had to take a stand:
It was indeed fake at the time.
Reference Links:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-19/elon-musk-directed-tesla-autopilot-video-saying-car-drove-itself-tsla
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/19/musk-oversaw-misleading-2016-video-saying-tesla-drove-itself/
https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/10gc4hx/musk_oversaw_video_that_exaggerated_teslas/