Barely out of a lawsuit against Twitter, which he finally bought, Elon Musk should quickly find the dock.
The Department of Justice, the American equivalent of the Department of Justice, accuses him of having deliberately misled Tesla customers and investors about the reliability of the Autopilot of its Tesla. The investigation, opened more than a year ago and revealed by the Reuters agency on October 27, is not the first of its kind and follows the epidemic of fatal accidents involving this feature in early 2020.
Autopilot still far from perfect
Yet this has been Tesla’s promise for years, and surely one of the reasons for the company’s significant growth: an automatic pilot that would take you from point A to point B without you having to look at the road, or almost. However, despite its commercialization and years of research and development, what today is more driving assistance than anything else still seems far from being developed. Launched in 2020, this feature has been involved in hundreds of road accidents, including at least 12 fatalities. This is a real problem for Tesla because, according to the law of the country where the accident takes place, the manufacturer can be held responsible, and therefore prosecuted.
Elon Musk himself largely returned, a week ago, to his promises of total autopilot, at least for the near future. This announcement, quite unsurprising given the lack of progress in the matter of his company in recent months, is surely explained by the lawsuit which awaits his company and which relates in particular to the communication of the latter.
Tesla’s communication questioned
If Tesla can indeed be sued if its Autopilot is involved in an accident, that is not what is at issue here. What American justice criticizes the manufacturer for is its marketing, which seems to be deploying all the efforts in the world to hide the defects of this system. Starting with his way of presenting it. Thus, cars equipped with Autopilot are called “ self driving cars (meaning “cars that drive themselves”). This term is grossly exaggerated, since said cars still need, legally but also to take over in the event of an unusual situation, that the driver keeps his hands on the wheel.
If the company recalls that it has always said that the driver had to keep his hands on the wheel, the American administration does not seem convinced. It must be said that Tesla has always, even after serious accidents involving it, largely insisted on the reliability of its technology. Elon Musk himself recently said that his cars will soon be able to drive without anyone touching the controls. He has since backtracked…
Sources: Engadget, Gizmodo
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