The Real Reason The Government Hates Tesla..
Here’s a question that I want to explore today - why does it seem like every government agency in the United States is taking shots at Tesla every chance they get? It's like everyone from the Whitehouse on down to the traffic safety board is either actively or passively throwing shade at Tesla or Elon Musk to some degree as of late - and as a non-American myself, it’s been pretty baffling to watch. So, this isn’t going to be a video where we’re just angry and yelling or saying mean things about people. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of a strange phenomenon. So let’s get going.
What really makes this anti-Tesla situation so fascinating, is that it seems to fly in the face of everything that we assume America to be - I know that’s painting you all with a broad brush, but we’ve heard endlessly about the American Dream out here in the world. And it’s hard to imagine a better example of that dream than an awkward immigrant with a weird name like Elon Musk building a trillion dollar business empire on the foundation of a strong work ethic and big, bold ideas. You would think the dude would be a modern day version of a national hero like Henry Ford or John Rockefeller. But instead there’s this weird attitude among those in positions of power that they either pretend like Elon doesn’t exist or take the stance that he’s actually a bad guy.
What’s the deal with that? It seems to go pretty deep, so we’ll start with the least important people and work our way up from there.
NTSB
OK, the National Transportation Safety Board is one that we’ve been hearing a lot about recently when it comes to Tesla related grievances and investigations. Just recently, on or around October 25th, the Chair of the board wrote a letter to Elon Musk, and excerpts of the letter have been made public through stories in the media. From what we can gather, Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy is pretty upset with Elon because Tesla has not formally responded to NTSB recommendations about their Autopilot software.
What they are getting at here is a 2017 recommendation where the NTSB told automakers that they should limit the use of their level 2 automated driving systems. This all stemmed from a 2016 crash involving a Tesla Model S and tractor trailer - this was the first known fatal collision with Tesla Autopilot engaged.
Basically, what happened was a semi truck crossed a four lane divided highway and the Tesla crashed into the side of the trailer at 75 miles per hour. In this location there is an intersection with a break in the centre median that allows vehicles to make unprotected left turns across traffic. What was found in the investigation was that the driver of the Tesla wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize that a semi truck had pulled out infront of him, the driver of the truck didn’t realize or care that there was a vehicle speeding towards him as he pulled out to make the left turn, and Autopilot didn’t realize that there was a truck in the road and didn’t take any measures to avoid it. So there was a lot going on here that contributed to the crash, but the one factor that rose to the top in media reports and the investigation was the Autopilot.
Tesla openly admitted at the time that there were two main reasons that Autopilot didn’t do anything to prevent the crash. Because Autopilot was - and still is - only designed for highway use, the collision detection system wasn’t tuned to an obstacle being perpendicular across the road, it was focused mainly on not rear-ending other cars that are moving in the same direction. The other factor that confused the collision detection system was the height of the trailer - the front end and hood of the Model S were able to pass under the transport trailer, the collision happened at the windshield. So because the car could see under and through the object, it didn’t register as something to avoid. Elon Musk said afterwards that the car might have falsely registered the trailer as an overhead sign.
Of course, the root cause of the crash was the fact that the person behind the wheel didn’t notice that a tractor trailer had pulled out infront of their car and didn't take any action to avoid it. Even the family of the driver made an effort at the time to shift the narrative away from the self-driving car. In a statement the family said, “We heard numerous times that the car killed our son.” “That is simply not the case.”
Even still, the NTSB published a list of recommendations to all automakers who offer Level 2 self-driving abilities that suggested manufacturers should not let a product be used in a manner that is, “inconsistent with its design.” Other recommendations centered around data collection and designs for determining whether drivers are actually paying attention behind the wheel.
So that’s the 5 year old backstory on why the Chair of the NTSB is writing an angry letter to Elon Musk in October 2021. There are a couple of weird things going on here. The NTSB can issue recommendations, but they can not make new regulations - nothing that they say is binding, it’s just what they consider to be good advice. Though they do have very strong expectations that companies will take that advice and act on it. That’s what Homendy is referencing in her letter. She says that the five other automakers in the report officially responded to the recommendations within the 90 day window that the safety board prescribes, and the NTSB officially flagged those responses as acceptable. Tesla did not file a response.
Again, this all happened 5 years ago. And in the time since then Tesla have actually done a lot to improve the driver monitoring system during Autopilot, they’ve increased the frequency of alerts when drivers take their hands off the wheel, they’ve reduced the scenarios where Autopilot will actually allow you to engage the system, and Tesla are even in the process of incorporating a camera based driver monitoring system into their Full Self Driving feature.
But that doesn’t really matter to the NTSB. All they seem to care about is whether or not the company formally responds to the recommendations that are made. In the letter Homandy writes to Elon, quote, “You have stated that safety is always the primary design requirement for a Tesla. Now that statement is undercut by the announcement that Tesla drivers can request access to “Full Self-Driving Beta technology,” operational on both highways and city streets, without first addressing the very design shortcomings that allowed the fatal crashes to occur.”
In March 2021, Elon Musk did report on Twitter that the FSD Beta had expanded to about 2,000 users. But at the same time, Tesla had actually revoked Beta access where drivers did not pay sufficient attention to the road.
In May 2021, it was widely reported that Tesla had started using in-cabin cameras to make sure that drivers are paying attention while using Autopilot. As far as I can tell, that makes Tesla the only brand to use both camera monitoring and steering wheel input at the same time - for example, GM Super Cruise has camera monitoring but does not require hands on the wheel.
And in October 2021, just days before the NTSB letter was published, we got reports that Tesla have been giving notice to Full Self Driving users who don’t pay attention to the road and warning them that access to the software will be revoked, here’s an excerpt from the email that Tesla is sending to drivers who misuse the software, “This is your only warning to please keep your hands on the wheel and remain attentive at all times when using Autopilot. The car is not autonomous, and if you aren’t paying attention, a crash could happen, and you or others could get hurt, or worse, so failure to abide by this warning will result in removal of the FSD Beta feature from your vehicle.”
So, for the NTSB to outright claim that Tesla have done nothing to improve their driver monitoring, when they have demonstrably done quite a lot.. It’s pretty weird.
And it has been said that this is a case of Homandy being personally biased against Tesla due to her history as a union lobbyist and Elon Musk’s history of discouraging worker’s unions. But she’s fairly new to the job, being appointed in the spring of 2021, and it does seem odd that she’s bringing a 5 year old conflict back to the surface. But this kind of attitude from the NTSB has been ongoing for a long time. In February 2020, the previous Chair, Robert Sumwalt, said basically the exact same thing about Tesla not responding to the 2017 recommendations - and his background is entirely in the aviation industry with seemingly no connection to unions or anything automotive related.
So, I don’t mean to be patronizing, but it really seems like the board is just upset that Tesla won’t respond to their emails and they take it personally. They don’t actually care about what happens in real life. Because literally all the NTSB would have to do is read the news to know that Tesla is already doing the things that were recommended - and they should, in theory, be pretty happy or at least supportive of that.
NHTSA
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a level up from the NTSB, these people actually have some teeth when it comes to making rules and regulations. And they have bones to pick with Tesla as well.
The ongoing situation between the NHTSA and Tesla again revolves around Autopilot. No surprise there. In this case, the administration is investigating 12 collisions involving Teslas on Autopilot that have smashed into emergency vehicles. We don’t have specific details readily available on all of the incidents, but we’ve learned that they all occurred at night and involved emergency crews using flashing lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board or cones to warn of hazards.
So on the one hand, it looks like they are making a fair point. If Autopilot can’t recognize an emergency situation with fire trucks and police cars on the road, then that’s not ideal. Obviously. It’s probably something that the software should be able to detect and make some kind of response - probably to shut itself off and make the driver take over control or at the very least slow the car down.
On the other hand, any responsible car driver who sees flashing lights and emergency vehicles on the road should just instinctively switch off Autopilot or any other kind of cruise control feature that they might be using. It seems like a common sense solution.
Either way, in this case Tesla has actually submitted their response to the administration’s request. They don’t really have much of a choice because this time there are legal consequences to just ghosting. The NHTSA compelled Tesla to turn over Autopilot data collected from over 750,000 vehicles, the majority of all cars Tesla has ever made. And so far Tesla has submitted a partial response to that request which came with an October 22nd deadline. We don’t know the content of Tesla’s response because they have made a broad request for “confidential business treatment”. Which is fair to say, Autopilot is a selling feature for Tesla and they don’t want 7 or 8 years worth of data getting out to their competition. Not that competition is being left out of the whole investigation though, every other automaker who uses a level 2 driver assist feature also has to submit their data to the NHTSA, they just have a later deadline than Tesla to do it. So the eventual ruling is going to be much larger and wider ranging than just Tesla and Autopilot. This could be a kind of referendum on advanced driver assist features as a whole.
Meanwhile, on September 22nd, Tesla released an over-the-air software update to their Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that seems to directly address the issue with emergency vehicles and flashing lights. While the update itself didn't include specific notes related to the added feature, the owner's manual has been updated to now read:
“If a Model 3 or Model Y detects lights from an emergency vehicle when using Autosteer at night on a high speed road, the driving speed is automatically reduced and the touchscreen displays a message informing you of the slowdown. You will also hear a chime and see a reminder to keep your hands on the steering wheel. When the light detections pass by or cease to appear, Autopilot resumes your cruising speed. Alternatively, you may tap the accelerator to resume your cruising speed."
The NHTSA saw that Tesla had made the update and responded to that by asking the automaker to explain why they had not issued a recall order to address the software update. Which is strange. I guess the point that the administration is trying to make is that if Tesla is sending out a fix to a defective program, then they should make everyone aware that this is what they are doing. But it seems like this is more a case of Tesla adding a new feature that didn’t exist before, as opposed to fixing a broken feature. It’s hard to see what a recall order would accomplish or what difference it would make, because the new feature was just automatically added to every car without the owner needing to do anything themselves.
Anyway. That’s the regulatory side of things, which overall seems to be done fairly for the most part. It’s the NHTSA’s job to scrutinize, that’s what they’ve been doing. But as if this isn’t already enough to process, Missy Cummings enters the equation and things get really messy.
Cummings has just been appointed as a senior advisor for safety at the NHTSA. She’s a retired fighter pilot, an engineering professor at Duke University and someone who has a lot of experience with autonomous systems, particularly autonomous driving. She also is not a fan of Tesla Autopilot or Elon Musk. Like, really not a fan. And that’s led to some conflicts over the past week.
Elon Musk tweeted on October 19th, “Objectively, her track record is extremely biased against Tesla.” And there are a few reasons for him to say that.
For one, Cummings is a major stakeholder and previous board member of a company called Veoneer - they make advanced driver assistance systems for vehicles that are based on Lidar sensors. It’s kind of like a competitor to Tesla Autopilot, but also not really the same thing. Veoneer develop their technology and sell it to car companies. So if Subaru for example wants their cars to have advanced driver assist, but doesn't want to develop the system internally, they can just go to Veoneer and buy it. Tesla on the other hand develops Autopilot for internal use only, they don’t sell it to other companies. So, yes similar product, but very different business model. Either way, Missy resigned her position on the board of that company after taking the job at the NHTSA. She might still hold her 25 thousand shares, there’s no way to know, it’s probably not that big of a deal, lots of people in positions of power have large investments, that’s just what rich folks do. If someone who owned a large stake in Tesla had been appointed to the same position, would you still consider that a bad thing?
Then there are her public comments on Tesla Autopilot, mostly made on Twitter. Cummings has said in the past, "I have driven several Tesla's - autopilot easily causes mode confusion, is unreliable and unsafe, NHTSA should require Tesla to turn it off." Which is harsh, but it’s fine for people to have opinions. Probably the most brutal thing she’s written publicly was in 2018 when she tweeted, "The only killer robot out there is Elon Musk's Tesla." Which again is pretty harsh and arguably not true but there’s nothing illegal or immoral about a bit of hyperbole. (high-per-buh-lee)
Not that any of those Tweets are available anymore, because Cummings deleted her Twitter account after being broadly harassed by a bunch of rabid Tesla supporters - which was a shitty thing to have happen, that doesn’t accomplish anything useful and just makes us all look like a bunch of assholes. I don’t know, strong opinions met strong opinions and things got ugly. It’s just the way of the world today.
Either way, she has the job that she has and no amount of petitioning or ranting from the Tesla community is going to change that. Cummings isn’t the boss of the NHTSA, she’s an advisor. I know it’s easy to make her a scapegoat for the whole ant-Tesla movement because she’s a woman with strong opinions and a kind of funny name. But like we’ve been talking about this whole video, it’s more than just one person or one organisation at play here.
The President
And that goes as high up as President Joe Biden himself. He doesn’t outwardly criticize Tesla, but he does passively bring them down by just refusing to acknowledge that they exist.
Like, it’s weird that Biden is very much pro electric vehicles, and a huge supporter of made in America products and American innovation - all of which Tesla would be the obvious poster child for. But when the White House holds a conference for American automakers to talk about transitioning to electric vehicles, Tesla is nowhere to be found.
That could have something to do with Biden’s stance on unionized labour, he’s by far the most pro union president that has come along in a very long time. During his campaign, Biden was endorsed by some very influential labour unions, and so far in his presidency he’s appointed a lot of former union leaders to high positions of power in his administration.
Elon Musk on the other hand has been accused and convicted of illegally sabotaging Tesla employee efforts to form a union. There are no consequences associated with that ruling, but it does make Elon’s stance on the matter pretty well known.
Still, you’d wonder why a difference in opinion between Biden and Musk on one issue should have such a large effect on the relationship between the government and Tesla as a whole.
Like we keep saying, it’s just all very strange. And even after spending all of this time looking into the subject and researching all of these different boards and administrations and levels of government, we can’t really put a finger on any one thing. As much as I thought we might uncover some kind of a conspiracy with all this work, I just don’t think it’s there.
Tesla represents change and a different way of doing things. Some people just don’t like that. Maybe that’s all there is to it.
