Tesla faked self-driving demo, Autopilot engineer testifies
- Reference: 1674073753
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/18/tesla_selfdriving_video_faked/
- Source link:
In a partly redacted [1]deposition [PDF] from a 2019 civil case, given in June last year and previously unreported, Elluswamy testifies that the safety and capabilities of Autopilot as demonstrated in the [2]four-minute clip were not consistent, at the time, with what was presented to the viewer.
At the time the video was recorded in 2016, Elluswamy was a software engineer on the Autopilot team and told lawyers he was directly involved with the making of the video, even sitting in the back seat of the vehicle during tapings.
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"The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016. It was to portray what was possible to build the system," Elluswamy said in his testimony, "so in that sense … it was not trying to portray what was the then state of Autopilot," he added.
[4]
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Under questioning, Elluswamy told the court the route was planned and 3D mapped in advance, it took multiple takes to get a run without the need for human intervention, and – according to the engineer – the car even hit a fence when trying to demonstrate automatic parking.
Of the video, Tesla CEO Elon Musk [6]said at the time: "Tesla drives itself (no human input at all) thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot." Tesla's page for the video describes it as an example of the full self-driving hardware that comes standard in all Tesla's.
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Elluswamy was being deposed in a 2019 case – Sz Hua Huang et al v. Tesla Inc – to do with a fatal 2018 Tesla accident involving Autopilot. In that crash, an Apple engineer died. Tesla [8]said the accident was at least partially the driver's fault because the engineer, Walter Huang, allegedly did not have his hands on the wheel while Autopilot was engaged.
The engineer's family has sued Tesla, [9]alleging that Autopilot was defectively designed, misrepresented and falsely advertised. In December, Tesla asked the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara County for an order prohibiting additional depositions from its employees in the case, but was denied.
That 2016 video isn't a new controversy for Tesla, either. In a 2021 New York Times [10]story about Tesla's quest for self driving, the newspaper said several Tesla employees who worked on the video had come forward to claim it was falsely representing Autopilot's capabilities.
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According to the NYT, "The route taken by the car had been charted ahead of time by software that created a three-dimensional digital map … At one point during the filming of the video, the car hit a roadside barrier on Tesla property while using Autopilot and had to be repaired."
If that sounds familiar, it's more or less what Elluswamy said.
More fodder for the lawyers
Tesla is currently dealing with numerous Autopilot-related lawsuits and government investigations.
Among other battles, Tesla is being [12]sued by police in Texas who allege defects in Tesla's safety features, which they claim were overlooked to "pump Tesla's share price and sell more cars" that led to a Model X smashing into two parked police cruisers at 70mph (112kph) during a traffic stop.
Meanwhile, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration opened a [13]formal engineering analysis to look at Autopilot safety issues in June of last year.
[14]Tesla reportedly faces criminal probe into self-driving hype
[15]Self-driving car computers may be 'as bad' for emissions as datacenters
[16]BMW updates 90% of EVs sold in the US over power software bug
[17]Microsoft said to be thinking of sinking $10m into self-driving truck startup
California's Department of Motor Vehicles filed a [18]pair of complaints against Tesla in August alleging the company misrepresented its autonomous driving capabilities. That same month, several California Tesla owners filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the Musk-owned automaker [19]hid Autopilot malfunctions from drivers that have caused Teslas to suddenly brake in traffic.
In October, the US Department of Justice announced a [20]criminal investigation into Tesla's self-driving claims.
We've asked Elluswamy and Tesla for comment but haven't heard back. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23574198/elluswamy-deposition-transcript.pdf
[2] https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-tesla-cars
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y8h6FND6s08-J3y6GuBkSAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y8h6FND6s08-J3y6GuBkSAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y8h6FND6s08-J3y6GuBkSAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/789019145853513729?lang=en
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y8h6FND6s08-J3y6GuBkSAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/02/car_safety_watchdog_growls_at_tesla_for_reveal_crash_details/
[9] https://www.minamitamaki.com/2019/05/family-of-tesla-car-crash-victim-walter-huang-files-lawsuit-against-automaker-state-of-california/
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y8h6FND6s08-J3y6GuBkSAAAAIQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/28/texas_model_x_tesla_lawsuit/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/nhtsa_tesla_autopilot/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/doj_self_driving_car_criminal/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/13/selfdriving_car_computers_could_equal/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/bmw_ev_update/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/06/microsoft_gatik_autonomous_driving/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/08/tesla_california_autopilot/
[19] http://several
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/doj_self_driving_car_criminal/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Nothing new is happening ...
I understand that when a building is put up, the builders are supposed to supply an "as built" plan to correct the original architect's and engineer's "as planned" plan. I don't know how often they actually do so, but either way, I wish this were done in SW development. .
In an Agile project I was involved in, the spec for each sprint was published, but more often than not, something had to be changed along the way. The changes were never documented. The net result was that there was no written documentation for the program "as built"; knowledge resided in the recollection of the product and project managers and developers. Since I was an add-on to the project, in a product management role, in order to design (and assist in the implementation of) a particular facility, I did quite a bit of testing to make sure it worked in context.
Once I saw something surprising happen and asked someone who had been on the product management team at a high level for a long time, "What is the program supposed to do when X happens?" He couldn't tell me. He said, "Why don't you try it and see?" Well, I had already tried it and seen, but it was not satisfactory. What I was really after was "What is SUPPOSED to happen" in this situation. I didn't know whether what I had seen was an implementation failure or a design failure.
IIRC, the lamented Fred Brooks said that every project of any size require a "Librarian", to keep track of project documentation and keep it up to date. That book was written in the waterfall era and I think technologists using more recent development paradigms have largely assumed that this role was no longer required. But my (limited) experience, described above, leads me to believe that it is needed as much in the agile era as in the waterfall era, or maybe even more so.
'We've asked Elluswamy and Tesla for comment but haven't heard back.'
Have you tried tweeting them?
Is anybody really surprised? Here we are several years on and Tesla still don't have a successful fully autonomous car but they are expecting us to believe they had a full working self driving car seven years ago. Can't believe that didn't come back to bite them on the arse a lot sooner.
Nothing new is happening ...
Here's a very old quote that essentially describes what is still happening today ... Doug was talking about software issues but the concept that he described happening back in 1968 applies to everything these days - I just spent this morning hearing all about these types of problems ... optical software "performing measurements" as someone walks, but every "measurement" is in millimeters - here's one:
X=4.274241216, Y=1.355787776, Z=5.937175968 ... can you measure distances with a resolution of 0.000000001 mm, how big is an atom?
"The most deadly thing in software is the concept, which almost universally seems to be followed, that you are going to specify what you are going to do, and then do it. And that is where most of our troubles come from. The projects that are called successful, have met their specifications. But those specifications were based upon the designers' ignorance before they started the job." -- D.T. Ross, NATO Software Engineering Conference, 1968