You're about to watch a self-driving Tesla vehicle cause
an eight vehicle crash on the San Francisco Bay bridge.
The incident happened on November 24th of last year,
just hours after Elon Musk announced that the self driving-feature was
available to all Tesla in North America.
Now, luckily, no one died in the crash, but
nine people were in fact injured, including a two-year-old child.
The driver confirmed to police that he had the Tesla on self-driving mode.
And if you think the technology is developed enough to the point where
you can literally rely on it just being in self-driving mode,
you would be mistaken, and that's what the real problem is here.
Now, this is not an isolated incident either, a few more details.
So, Tesla vehicles using its Autopilot driver assistance system were
involved in 273 known crashes from July of 2021 to June of last year,
according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.
Tesla's accounted for almost 70 percent of 200 of 329 crashes in which advanced
driver assistance systems were involved, as well as a majority of fatalities and
serious injuries associated with them, the data shows.
So one thing I want to just quickly mention right off the bat is,
when Tesla first came to the market, it was exciting.
I don't even know if there were any other electric vehicles on the market at
the time, and if there were, they certainly didn't get the kind of fanfare.
>> There had been, I don't remember at that point when the Roadster came out,
I don't know if there was another full electric.
>> So now there are other options, >> Many.
>> Certainly, many more affordable options, right?
And so, I think that the pressure to compete has led
Elon Musk to think it's totally cool to roll out.
And more importantly market this feature as if it's fully developed ready to go.
You could totally just rely on the driverless feature without having any
concerns.
But that's not true,
clearly there are concerns because these accidents have been happening.
>> Yeah, this can happen,
there are other cars that have driver assistance technology.
They generally are not marketed as if they're an advanced positronic brain that
controls everything.
This is on Elon musk, in the same way that he'll come up with like,
I'm gonna just give blue checks to everybody and then just do it,
don't even worry about the code or the consequences, just do it.
Well, okay, in a social media site, maybe that sort of knee jerk, I had an idea,
it's probably the smartest thing anyone has ever thought of before.
Strategy can work,
or at least if it doesn't work, there aren't a lot of consequences for.
But when it's literally thousands of pounds of metal and glass going 60, 70,
80 miles an hour, then suddenly becomes a little bit more consequential.
But Elon musk fundamentally doesn't care about what happens to people,
if you worried about the fact that, maybe you're gonna get to the fatalities?
>> I am, yes.
>> Yeah, okay, well I won't spoil it just yet.
Like you would dial it back, you would change the branding,
you would maybe put it on hold for a little bit, but
he doesn't care about the human costs, the actual human costs of these crashes.
He cares about hype and looking like some sort of tech genius or something.
Because he pressured some engineers and coders to come up with the technology and
then decided to put it out before it was actually ready.
>> Now, you're exactly right about that.
So let's talk a little bit about the fatalities,
because there have been people who have died as a result.
So, since 2016, for instance, the federal agency has investigated a total of 35
crashes in which Tesla's Full-Self Driving or Autopilot systems were likely in use.
Together, these incidents have killed 19 people.
Look guys, a lot of different vehicles at this point have certain technology,
that's computerized, that I think you shouldn't just rely on, right?
So, I'll give you an example.
I have a little Honda Civic, I love my Honda Civic, but it also has this really,
really annoying feature, which sounds good except it malfunctions all the time.
It's a feature that automatically like slams the brakes,
if it thinks I'm gonna rear end another car.
There have been times where I'm nowhere near the rear end of another car and
it just out of no where the brakes will be activated and it freaking scares me.
The car behind me thinks I did it on purpose and I'm trying to cause
an accident coz there are some scammers out there who will slam their brakes so
they can be rear ended, so they can like basically scam your insurance company, and
it's it's terrible, right?
So, no one should just rely on, first of all, don't listen to CEOs or
executives of these brands and just take what they say at face value, but
it's not your fault, I don't wanna put the onus on you.
There needs to be better regulations on a federal level to ensure that you don't
have executives making false claims about the technology that's included in their
vehicles.
>> Can you disable that feature, the automatic braking?
You've got to be able to run.
>> I'm sure that you can, it would require me to look at the manual and that,
>> I will look at it for
you because that seems unsafe and I don't want you driving around with that.
>> But please do that.
>> Okay, remind me after the show.
>> That would be great [LAUGH].
>> So, and I will also say, I understand that I'm obviously, if you've been
watching this video, very critical of Tesla, more so, Elon musk, honestly.
Because again, these are engineers being forced to try to do in far too short
a time what is effectively impossible,
create an AI that can do all the driving for you.
It's not on them that it's not ready yet, they did what they could,
he decided it was ready, I'm sure they don't think it is.
And I still think, and maybe I'll be proven to be wrong in 10, 20 years.
I still think that long-term these technologies will eventually need to get
out there and be the common way that we drive,
because it is just to play devil's advocate.
Well, those 19 deaths totally could have been avoided by just actually testing
this and not making the customers of your company your beta test, like a psychopath.
But, bear in mind over 50,000 people die in crashes every single year and
they die in crashes for reasons that aren't that difficult to figure out.
It's because people are drinking and driving, they're driving too fast,
they're driving while texting, they're driving while on TikTok.
The human brain is way more fallible than technology will eventually be.
>> No.
>> That said, have you driven on LA roads and highways?
People are constantly trying to murder you.
>> Look, I totally agree with that part.
>> I just don't trust Elon musk to be in charge of the regulations, and by the way,
there are not nearly enough federal regulations on how this technology
can be tested.
>> Is tested on the road.
>> Yes, some states do.
>> You guys, that's like the biggest issue, well,
all of it's a big issue, right?
But the federal government is so pathetic that they don't have regulations
in place when it comes to testing this technology on our roads.
So, you're right, some states have actually taken some initiative and
have passed their own regulations, but that's like a handful of states, and
we need regulation on a federal level.
We need regulation when it comes to private businesses in so
many different areas in this country, and that's like one of the problems I have.
By the way, when it comes to the phantom braking that I just talked about,
when it came to my Civic, don't worry, Tesla's have the same issue.
In recent months, a surge of reports have emerged in which Tesla drivers
complained of sudden phantom braking,
causing the vehicle to slam on its brakes at high speeds.
More than 100 such complaints were filed with NHTSA in a three-month period,
according to the Washington Post.
>> It's not difficult to figure out why.
If you're gonna have technology like this and they're gonna air on the side
of either, like being too reactive to a perceived threat that
might not actually be there, sort of a false positive versus the opposite,
you're gonna err on the side of breaking.
But when you're driving on a fully open highway and
all of a sudden it slams on the brakes at 80 miles an hour, it's terrifying.
>> Absolutely.