Musk’s Robotaxis Under Investigation For Dodging Safety Standards
from the who-needs-oversight? dept
It says nothing good about America how easily Elon Musk convinced the press and public he was a supergenius engineer who could cobble together complicated rocket machinery wearing coveralls in his backyard shed.
Hindsight continues to illustrate how Elon Musk’s real skill sets are opportunism, taking singular credit for the innovations of real engineers, the manipulation of a very broken media, and taking legal, regulatory, environmental, labor, and consumer protection “shortcuts” wherever possible.
Enter the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is investigating Musk’s automated-taxi Cybercab deployments in Austin for violating public safety guidelines.
The Trump NHTSA is updating existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) to help companies speed toward automated cars and taxis. But until then our previous (already fairly lax) standards still apply. This being America, companies self-certify whether they’re adhering to the rules in order to get a two-year exemption (Amazon’s Zoox got approval last month).
Tesla, owned by a man who doesn’t believe in coherent governance, is facing a new NHTSA investigation for simply refusing to participate in the process
“Ann Carlson, a former acting NHTSA administrator who is now a professor of environmental law at UCLA, says the investigation is likely “an indication that NHTSA is super frustrated with Tesla.” The agency made clear through the Zoox case that it expects driverless vehicle developers to go through the exemption process. “For Tesla to slap them in the face and ignore that—that is gobsmacking,” she says.”
It’s not really all that gobsmacking for a company run by a man who has been extremely proud about his clumsy role in fatally dismantling U.S. federal government functionality — particularly when it pertains to corporate oversight and public safety. This is always who he was. He has a twelve-year old libertarian boy’s understanding of what government does and why it’s necessary.
Of course, this isn’t the first time NHTSA has promised accountability and then delivered the policy equivalent of a wet farting sound. The agency announced it opened an inquiry last year into Musk robotaxis clearly failing to adhere to traffic laws and making constant navigation mistakes.
The NHTSA is also purportedly investigating all the people killed by “full self driving” (FSD) technology and Tesla’s very intentional misrepresentation of what the tech is capable of. That inquiry also appears to be perpetually stuck in neutral, like most of the legal and regulatory inquiries into the country’s richest fake engineer.
Filed Under: cars, cybercab, full self driving, nhtsa, public safety, robotaxis, vehicles
Companies: tesla
Comments on “Musk’s Robotaxis Under Investigation For Dodging Safety Standards”
Fake it until you still cannot make it.
(Are we not in the tenth consecutive year that theses cars are supposed to drive themselves ?)
And it's actually worse
There’s no steering wheel, no pedals, no nothing inside those robotaxis — so there no way for emergency responders to move them except by pushing/pulling them. And Tesla’s instruction about doing that state that doing so “incorrectly” may result in an electric shock.
You need an app to open the doors, which is well beyond merely stupid.
And so on. These things are deathtraps for anyone riding in them and they’re going to get in the way of rescues.
Prior to the Cybertruck, Tesla vehicles were actually pretty solid. Because Elon was content to let his engineers do the engineering while he took credit.
The CT, though, as well as the optical-only self-driving, are the results of the engineers having to try to bring his brain farts to life. You can just glance at Tesla and see things turned to shit where he put his hands on it.
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Tesla vehicles were “pretty solid”? Don’t think so, they were and are still plasticky overpriced pieces of shit that rattle like everything is loose inside, nothing like the luxury prices they command.
Seriously, how hard would it have been to do this?
So, because apparently even submitting self-certification of compliance with rather lax standards is just too much to ask for the richest man in the world, we now have the Trump administration investigating Elon Musk for failing to follow regulations despite Trump and Musk being of a similar kind and working together to dismantle the government and Trump’s incredibly corrupt and weak enforcement of any regulations (unless he can weaponize them against political opponents and other perceived enemies)…
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I don’t think it’s too much to ask, I think it comes down to that the robotaxis can’t adhere to the current lax standards and avoiding the self certify process then means there are no paper trail which can be used by the NHTSA to sue for being out of compliance.
This way Musk can keep playing Calvin ball by tying up any efforts by the NHTSA to force compliance in an endless circus of legal wrangling.
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I’m sure it has nothing to do with complexity, and everything to do with being a spoiled rich petulant man-child that, sadly, way too many people worship, first and foremost the current administration.
Prior to the Cybertruck, Tesla vehicles were actually pretty solid. Because Elon was content to let his engineers do the engineering while he took credit.
The CT, though, as well as the optical-only self-driving, are the results of the engineers having to try to bring his brain farts to life. You can just glance at Tesla and see things turned to shit where he put his hands on it.
Well...
It does not.
Having said that, however, I’m gonna have to ask you to hold yonder horses, Karl. I am very far from a fan of the US, but to be fair to you lot, the rest of the world ain’t lagging that far behind the US in Musk worship. I have a depressingly vast trove of anecdata backing my case, here, as does pretty much everyone else reading, I expect.
The US was extra unfortunate in that he ended up on your shores, but the man is a global problem and concern, no matter where he happens to be dodging taxes.
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The US has been especially prone to right-wing billionaire bullshit for a long time compared to the rest of Western civilization.
Re: Re:
‹quote›opportunism, taking singular credit for the innovations of real engineers, the manipulation of a very broken media, and taking … “shortcuts” wherever possible.‹/quote›
Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of our generation.
Dodging safety standards
It will be revealed that there are people remotely doing the dodging.
Elon Musk quote…“I think instead of doing DOGE, I would have basically worked on my companies,” he said.
And here is the proof, asshole.
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Had Elon not worked at DOGE, it’s possible he could’ve instead run his companies into the ground faster through his shitty leadership. Probably would’ve killed fewer people, too.
The man won’t even pay lip service to the standard b.s. of :
“we investigated ourselves and found we were in full compliance.”
What a joke.
The Theory of Relativity
I seriously object to this egregious insult to the intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, ethical complexity, critical thinking skills, realistic worldview, and judicious decision-making of twelve-year-olds. 😡
Headlines like this always make me think, “Is water still wet?”
No, a wet farting sound would be *something*
“Of course, this isn’t the first time NHTSA has promised accountability and then delivered the policy equivalent of a wet farting sound.”
“Under investigation,” sigh. What’s to investigate? These vehicles are unsafe and Elon Musk is a walking malfunction