As concerns over Tesla's Full Self-Driving rise, former employees blame Elon Musk's erratic leadership, cost-cutting measures like removing radar, and more
Tesla's campaign to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle has suffered amid mounting safety concerns — and the boss's Twitter distraction
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program faces sharper scrutiny of whether leadership decisions and the reported removal of radar compromised its safety-development process.
Musk and Tesla must contend with a narrative that links autonomy-program execution directly to management attention and internal decision-making, rather than treating safety concerns as isolated technical issues.
Second-order effects
Safety claims, lawsuits, and regulatory attention can make Tesla’s disclosures and validation practices more consequential for customers, investigators, and other automated-driving developers.
Competitors may gain an opening to differentiate on sensing redundancy, testing discipline, and governance as Tesla’s camera-led approach draws renewed criticism.
Third-order effects
If recurring disputes over feature claims and safety persist, automated-driving competition is likely to shift from bold capability promises toward demonstrable operational controls and clearer accountability.
The pattern suggests that oversight of advanced vehicle software may increasingly depend on how companies document decisions, testing, and risk management—not only on the capability of the driving system itself.
The trend: Autonomous-vehicle development is moving toward a governance-and-validation contest, where credible safety processes matter as much as ambitious automation roadmaps.
@mathowie Any experience with Tesla Autopilot? Curious how it handles the same roads. — I had a frequent Autopilot failure on interstates where it would see a low speed-limit sign on an offramp (like 25 MPH) …
“the story of Full Self-Driving offers a vivid example of how the world's richest person has complicated one of his biggest bets through rash decision-making, a stubborn insistence on doing things differently, and unyielding confidence in a vision that has yet to be proven.” …
NEW: How Elon Musk's push to make Teslas ‘Full Self-Driving’ went off course. The system “was only progressing very slowly internally” but “the public wanted a product in their hands,” former employee John Bernal told me. “internally, we're nowhere close” https://www.washingtonpo…
The ‘Full Self-Driving’ push is a saga of Elon Musk's rash decision-making, rigid thinking and an unyielding confidence in a yet-unproven vision. “No one believed me that working for Elon was the way it was until they saw how he operated Twitter” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ .…
“The result, according to interviews with nearly a dozen former employees and test drivers, safety officials and other experts, was an uptick in crashes, near misses and other embarrassing mistakes by Tesla vehicles suddenly deprived of a critical sensor.” https://www.washingtonp…
I don't think especially highly of the guy but it's wild that Elon, wack as he is, might have actually delivered if he was a little bit less of a huckster and say 30 percent less of an asshole-on-principle. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
“...Musk's erratic leadership also played a role, forcing them to work at a breakneck pace to develop the tech & push it out to the public before it was ready. Some said they are worried that, even today, the software isn't safe to be used on public roads.” https://www.washington…
Love my Tesla. But the people who have spent $3B to buy *FSD* only to realize that it isn't even close to *full self driving" have been scammed along with investors who believe that Tesla is ALWAYS just a year away from a breakthrough. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Now that we've learned the emperor has no clothes given how he's publicly been running Twitter into the ground, we will start seeing more stories showing how Tesla & SpaceX have been successful despite his erratic leadership not because of it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
The part where the people responsible for shipping a reliable and safe autopilot solution are pulled off the project to do code reviews at Twitter is just 🤌https://www.washingtonpost.com / ...
How Elon Musk knocked Tesla's ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course by @faizsays https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Without doubt, FSD is dangerous and needs to banned—especially after Lidar was removed Musk is jeopardizing the lives not only of Tesla drivers but the public. This is cr…
Engineers where aghast as they learned Musk planned to remove Teslas' radars. They contacted a fmr. executive for advice on how to talk him out of it. But Musk won out. The result: crashes, embarrassing near misses, phantom braking, per a dozen interviews https://www.washingtonpo…
Notice how carefully @elonmusk worded his claim: “we'll have over a million Tesla cars on the road with full self-driving hardware”. He's said the same thing since 2015. No mention of software. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Essential reading for anyone considering buying a Tesla — or anyone who has to share the road with “self-driving” cars whose technology has been over-stated and under-engineered https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... by @faizsays on @washingtonpost
“Musk was unconvinced & overruled his engineers. In May 2021 Tesla announced it was eliminating radar on new cars. The company began disabling radar in cars already on the road. The result... was an uptick in crashes.” A gift article, no paywall https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ..…
“No one believed me that working for Elon was the way it was until they saw how he operated Twitter,” Bernal said, calling Twitter “just the tip of the iceberg on how he operates Tesla.”
Tesla is keenly aware of how its product is perceived. Two years ago, a popular YouTuber posted footage of a Tesla struggling to navigate Lombard Street, a testing ground for autonomous vehicles. Tesla devised a unique solution, a former employee told me: https://www.washingtonpo…
I do not understand how clearly dangerous and fraudulent claims of “self-driving” cars are not regulated while there is a rush to regulate speech. How Elon Musk knocked Tesla's ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...