The First Intervention from Musk on the Tesla Self-Driving v12: What Will He Do When He Gets His Hands on the Steering Yoke?
Musk is also in violation of Tesla’s own rules about how drivers should behave while using FSD. By filming the drive himself from the driver’s seat and also interacting with Twitter commenters during the drive, Musk is ignoring his own company’s guidelines that advise drivers to keep their hands on the steering yoke at all times. According to Tesla’s handbook:
To be sure, the video is noteworthy for other reasons, too. With Musk in the driver’s seat filming on his smartphone, the vehicle is seen driving through several roundabouts and construction zones with relative ease. He stated that the feature in v12 will be entirely artificial intelligence and cameras. Tesla’s approach to self-driving technology deviates from most other companies, which use a variety of sensors, including lidar and radar, while Tesla only uses cameras.
“So that’s our first intervention because the car should be going straight,” Musk said after taking control of the vehicle. We haven’t released it to the public yet because of that. Musk stated that v 12 will be the first time he has removed the “Beta” label from the software.
The US government may make a decision on whether or not to impose a recall on autopilot software from Musk’s car company, as Andrew explains in his article.
Full Self-Driving (Beta) is a hands-on feature. Keeping your hands on the steering yoke (or steering wheel) is a must, as is being aware of road conditions and surrounding traffic. Failure to obey the instructions could lead to serious injury or death.
The Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule: When a Palo Alto Police Chief Sees a Red Light, and he Doesn’t See it
The video is also poor quality and often grainy. It flips between the vertical and horizontal orientations. Musk often says he wants someone to make the footage more interesting.
At the 27 minute mark, Musk claimed that he was going to drive to the house of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a follow up to their much-publicized fight.
Musk Googles Zuckerberg’s address and then displays it prominently on-screen. Musk banned the ElonJet account that tracks his private jet because it was a direct personal safety risk to him.
Palo Alto police captain James Reifschneider states that an officer could have tickets for violating California’s handsfree law by observing the driver with the phone in their hand.
There’s no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle: he was forced to stop his “Full Self Driving” system from running a red light partway through the livestream, and he reveals that he’s in the drivers seat by turning the camera on himself near the 30-minute mark.
Let me be clear: I’m pretty sure Palo Alto Police have better things to do than chase down the world’s richest man for a $20 fine. (That’s the only punishment for a first offense — you can get a point against your driving record for a second offense, but only if it happens within three years of the first violation.)
Musk has been known to violate the law multiple times, and some are beginning to question his power. The piece of reporting Farrow wrote about Musk is titled “Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule” and shows how important his Starlink satellites were to the war in Ukraine.
Reifschneider: Seeing what they saw in their ticketing experience as a test of their knowledge of a driver’s actions
There are practical reasons why the department does not ticket without personally observing a driver, says Reifschneider, and they need to be able to tell a judge what they saw.
“The officer needs to be prepared to testify in court about what they personally observed (namely, that they saw the phone in the driver’s hand),” he writes.