A group of Tesla fans and investors has inadvertently exposed Tesla’s shadiness regarding crashes involving Autopilot by attempting to claim that the advanced driver-assist system was not active in a crash test.
It was not only active, but it also disengaged itself less than a second before the crash—a known shady behavior of Tesla’s Autopilot.
The video included a series of tests in which a Tesla Model Y on Autopilot went against a vehicle equipped with an ADAS system powered by a lidar sensor.
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The last test was the headline-grabbing one as it tested to see if the vehicles would stop for a Wile E. Coyote-style fake road wall in the middle of the road, but it was simply to illustrate the clear advantage of lidar in this case.
The other tests involving fog and rain where lidar outperformed Tesla’s vision-based system were obviously the more relevant and newsworthy tests.
I thought it was simply a well-made video that illustrated the difference between vision-based systems, like Tesla’s, and lidar-based systems, which are more commonly used by companies delivering self-driving technology and now even regular ADAS systems.
But I was surprised to see my X feed inundated with Tesla fans calling me “fake news” for posting it.
The accusations started with an account named “AI Drivr” who is part of a group called “Rebellionaires”, which help “Tesla all-ins investors”. They claimed that “Autopilot wasn’t even turned on during the test”:
They also claimed that I ignored this fact because I wanted “a good anti-Elon article”.
They even got my article on the video “community noted” (since removed, but I have a screenshot here):
The only problem for them is that Autopilot was turned on during the test as clearly shown in the video below.
Rober accelerates to the test’s set speed of ~40 mph. You can see he tried to double-tap the stalk but sort of misses the second, though he quickly does it again, and you can see Autopilot turns on.
It’s true that Autopilot disengages a fraction of a second before the crash when it is impossible to stop it:
From the video, it is clear that Autopilot is engaged, and neither the ADAS system nor the automatic emergency braking system activated to avoid the accident.
However, Autopilot appears to automatically disengage a fraction of a second before the impact as the crash becomes inevitable.
It would still count as an “Autopilot crash” as crashes that happen within 5 seconds of Autopilot being engaged count as Autopilot crashes. The community note was eventually removed from my article this morning, but AI Drivr and his “Tesla all-ins” never issued a retraction to their defamatory comments.
The funny thing is that I missed that Autopilot disengaged at the last second, but the attacks from Tesla investors pointed it out and actually exposed video evidence of a shady practice from Tesla that has been reported in the past.
Furthermore, Tesla has been abusing NHTSA’s self-driving crash redaction policies. The automaker is required to report all crashes where Autopilot or its “Full Self-Driving” systems are involved, but it has consistently had all important details redacted from the reports.
You can download the report here, where you can see that all the important data from Tesla crashes and almost all instances are fully redacted, which is not the case for most other automakers.
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ACME stock soars on today’s cartoonishly silly episode of Quick Charge, we watch Tesla Autopilot crash into a wall with a painting on it, make the Elon stans look silly when they point out shady behavior from their fearless leader, and toss out the notion that some franchise dealers might help the troubled EV brand make more sales in red states.
We also cover Toyota as it moves to position itself for global battery dominance by suppling batteries to more than 400,000 electrified Honda vehicles per year, plus an upgraded Xpeng G6 electric SUV that makes everything on this side of the Pacific look positively plebeian. All this and more, enjoy!
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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Tesla has already started offering 0% APR on loans for the new Model Y in China, showing a clear sign of weak demand.
We recently reported that Tesla is under increased pressure from competition in China, the world’s largest EV market.
The Tesla Model 3 was recently surpassed in sales by the Xiaomi SU7 in a record short period from starting production. The SU7 not only outsells Model 3 in China, but Xiaomi’s electric sedan has a 31-34-week-long order backlog compared to just 1-3 weeks for Tesla’s.
Tesla didn’t apply these same offers to new Model Y orders because Tesla enjoyed more demand for the vehicle due to the launch of the Model Y refresh, and the production launch limited the supplies.
We noted that a good indication of when Tesla is running out of the backlog of orders, which was opened in January, for the newly delivered vehicle would be if Tesla brings back financing incentives on the Model Y.
Today, Tesla announced that it was bringing back the 0% interest loans on the base version of the new Model Y:
The Model Y RWD is by far Tesla’s best-selling car in China and Tesla is now offering up to 3 years at 0% for a 30% down payment and some discounted rates for a smaller down payment.
The incentive starts now and up to April 30. Tesla wrote:
If you purchase a Model Y rear-wheel drive version from March 18, 2025 to April 30, 2025 and pick up the car before the order expiration date according to the delivery and payment terms in the order, eligible customers can apply for the following financial preferential plans:
Tesla currently quotes “2-4 weeks” as a delivery timeline for new orders for the new Model Y RWD, and 6-10 weeks for Long Range AWD.
The Long Range appears to enjoy a bit more demand. Tesla even slightly increased the price by RMB 10,000 yuan ($1,380).
Electrek’s Take
It’s important to consider that Tesla is believed to be selling a mix of RWD vs AWD around 3 to 1 or even 4 to 1. Therefore, any change in pricing and subsidized loans to the Short Range RWD would have a massive impact on Tesla.
I have to say, I’m surprised. I suspected Tesla would have some issues selling the new Model Y in the second half of the year after some excitement for the new version wore off and competition like the Xiaomi YU7 would arrive, but I didn’t think it would come so fast.
Even if this is because Tesla was able to ramp up production of the new version faster, which could mean more deliveries in Q1, the fact that they are already discounting them is a terrible sign of demand.
I didn’t have high hopes for Tesla’s prospects in China in 2025, but even I thought this would not come for another 3-5 months.
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The World Liberty Financial website arranged on a smartphone in New York, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto project said on Monday that it raised $250 million in its second token sale, bringing the total amount of coins sold to $550 million.
WLFI, a venture backed by the first family that describes itself as a sort of crypto banking platform, launched in October, weeks before Trump’s election victory. In a document published at the time of launch, WLFI said the Trump family could take home 75% of net revenue.
In Monday’s release, WLFI said more than 85,000 participants underwent so-called know-your-customer verification to gain access to the token sale. Co-founder Zach Witkoff, son of billionaire U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, is quoted in the release as saying that “WLFI is on track to supercharge DeFi,” or decentralized finance.
In January, Tron blockchain founder Justin Sun upped his stake in WLFI tokens to $75 million. A court filing the following month showed that Sun and the SEC were exploring a resolution to the regulator’s civil fraud case against the crypto entrepreneur.
WLFI is one of several crypto projects in the Trump family that are kicking off just as the president is pushing a crypto-friendly agenda. Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
According to a memo from the White House last week, David Sacks, the Trump administration’s AI and crypto czar, sold over $200 million worth of digital asset-related investments personally and through his firm, Craft Ventures, before starting the job. Sacks said in a podcast that he “didn’t want to even have the appearance of a conflict.”
At the end of February, the SEC declared that meme tokens are not securities. The announcement came after the president and First Lady Melania Trump launched their own meme coins in the days leading up to the inauguration.