About F%$#ing Time

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is reevaluating its decision not to demand data from Tesla's Autopilot.  

By law, they are required to collect data on self-driving systems, but Tesla told the DMV that this was just a driver assist program, which led the department not to demand data regarding system failures.

Of course, Telsa has been telling its customers that it is offering full safe driving in just 6 months (one Friedman Unit) for nearly a decade, so clearly something is not right here:

For years, Tesla has tested autonomous vehicle technology on public roads without reporting crashes and system failures to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, as other robot car developers are required to do under DMV regulations.

But confronted with dozens of viral videos showing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta technology driving the car into dangerous situations, and a letter of concern from a key state legislator, the DMV now says it’s reviewing Tesla’s behavior and reassessing its own policies.

The agency informed Tesla on Jan. 5 that it is “revisiting” its opinion that the company’s test program doesn’t fall under the department’s autonomous vehicle regulations because it requires a human driver.

Seriously, how does Elon Musk get so many waivers to basic regulations?

“Recent software updates, videos showing dangerous use of that technology, open investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the opinions of other experts in this space” prompted the reevaluation, the DMV said in a letter Monday to state Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), chair of the Senate’s transportation committee.

Concerned about public safety, Gonzalez asked the DMV in December for its take on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta program, under which Tesla owners supervise the operation of cars programmed to autonomously navigate highways, city streets and neighborhood roads, stopping at traffic lights and stop signs as well as making left and right turns into traffic.

………

If the DMV requires Tesla to conform to DMV autonomous testing safety regulations, the company would have to report crashes and system failures, giving the public hard data needed to evaluate how safe or how dangerous the technology is. It would also stiffen test-driver requirements.

Thus far, the DMV has not required Tesla to report crashes and disengagements — situations in which the robot software turns control over to the test driver. The agency has said it considers Full Self-Driving a “Level 2” driver assist system, akin to systems from other carmakers that include lane-keeping, adaptive cruise control, and automatic lane changing.

Tesla has always made outrageous claims about its capabilities, and since it has removed radar from its low end models, the performance has gotten much worse.

Autopilot is a menace, because regulators have allowed it to be a menace.