Here’s the real story behind Tesla’s ‘staged’ self-driving video
There are a lot of media reports about Tesla having ‘staged’ or ‘faked’ a self-driving video in 2016 today after the testimony of a Tesla Autopilot executive was released, but here’s the full story.
In 2016, Tesla announced that all its vehicles going forward would be equipped with the hardware necessary to achieve full self-driving capability through software updates in the future.
Seven years later, Tesla has yet to deliver on that promise, but the company is still promising it and releasing software updates that bring the capability closer.
After making the announcement in 2016, Tesla released a video demonstration of its self-drivng technology.
The video showed a Model X driving by itself around the Bay Area for a few miles – navigating some stop signs and traffic lights before entering Tesla’s parking lot.
Here’s the full video:
That was seven years ago, so why are we talking about it now?
Today, a lot of media reports are coming out with headlines about Tesla having “staged” or “faked” the video.
Those reports are all based on the testimony of Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, as part of the discovery for CEO Elon Musk’s trial brought by shareholders over claims that he misled them.
In his testimony, Elluswamy confirmed that Tesla used 3D mapping on a predetermined route to create the video. He also said that Tesla did the run multiple times and that the test drivers intervened on several occasions.
The engineer added:
“The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016. It was to portray what was possible to build into the system.”
Elluswamy also confirmed that the Autopilot team put the video together as a “demonstration of the system’s capabilities” at the request of Musk.
There’s nothing really new here
We already knew that Tesla had to do all of that to create the video back in 2017.
In 2017, Tesla released its Disengagement of Autonomous Mode report with the California DMV and confirmed that it drove 550 autonomous miles in self-driving test vehicles with 168 disengagement events in 2016.
While the data was for the whole year of 2016, all of the miles were driven within the few weeks leading up to the demonstration video.
Tesla clearly didn’t have the capacity to release a self-driving system at the time because it had only just begun designing its own self-driving technology after stepping away from Mobileye’s driver assist system.
As we reported in 2017, Tesla ran a pre-determined route many times over in order for the system to be able to do it once without disengagement for the video.
There’s an argument that the video is indeed “staged” based on that, but the real thing in contention is that the video starts with Tesla saying this:
“The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”
Some think that the comment is inaccurate, but the car is actually driving itself in the video, which is unedited. It’s just that it can’t do it off the lot. Tesla had to custom-build software and maps for it, but the automaker never claimed otherwise.
Electrek’s Take
I’m not sure why the media decided to run with those comments because they don’t really add anything new that we didn’t know since 2017.
It’s certainly not an ideal presentation of the video, but I also don’t think you can make the point that Tesla lied or was even misleading with the video. It was showing what it planned to achieve with its self-driving and that it could do it right now with some custom software. The video showed the car navigating this route by itself.
And, in fact, now Tesla could do this same route with an off-the-lot vehicle equipped with Full Self-Driving Beta.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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