Tesla asks NHTSA to hide its response to Robotaxi questions

From the article: Tesla has requested that NHTSA withhold its response to the numerous questions the regulators had about its recent Robotaxi launch. As for the agency, it said that it is aware of some disturbing videos in which we can see Tesla’s system making serious mistakes on its first day. Prior to Tesla’s Robotaxi launch on Sunday, NHTSA had sent Tesla a series of questions about the program, which Tesla was required to answer by June 19th. The agency wanted a lot more details because it is particularly concerned about the fact that Tesla is using its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ in the Robotaxi service while it is currently under investigation for its involvement in several serious crashes. Tesla has now responded to NHTSA, but it has requested that the agency keep all its answers confidential. The automaker has consistently avoided sharing data about its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving programs, particularly crash data. Automakers and companies developing self-driving and ADAS systems are required to report all crashes related to those systems, but Tesla has been abusing NHTSA’s program to get some of the data reported.

Good thing someone ran through and gutted agencies to slow things down

Being honest and open is something Elon will never be, with **anything**. *"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make"* \-Musk

Pathetic

Although it was on the first day of the start of the Robotaxi, it wasn't on the first day of 'FSD'. After 10 years, those basic failures should have been already eliminated.

They don’t have a way to eliminate them and they never will

If Elmo had listened to his engineers instead of trying to - as always - be smarter than anyone, they could have installed Lidar like Waymo did and would have been miles ahead now given the 10 years since he got stuck on CAMERAS ONLY. But a narcissist is gonna narcissist.

Turns out the human brain has a high computing capacity for image recognition and spatial awareness. Computers are good for checking something a million times a second for a million years without interruption. Dropping lidar/radar was a mistake.

“Serious mistakes on the first day”, as in the kind of mistakes that would fail a 16-year old on a road test.

Now hold on… It’s only been five years since cameras only. If you’ll recall, they couldn’t source radar sets or ultrasonics during COVID. They had a choice between hamstringing their vehicles, or stopping production. They chose the former, and it took a couple of months for them to push a semi-workable software package that relied only on cameras. That’s when fElon started his cockamamie bullshit about sensor fusion being more difficult and demanding than vision-only autonomy.

It's all a show

It’s like the coffee flavor candy thing in Japan. Take a bunch of kids afraid to drive tell them they don’t have to worry and then you get people years later standing up for the software/ brand. Long game

That's what you ask for when the product doesn't work.....

Keeping in mind Elon’s DOGE stooges are still in there and will likely rubber stamp

>After 10 years, those basic failures should have been already eliminated. Or It's taken 10 years but we have eliminated all the basic failures and now believe it is safe to conduct trials on public roads.

Clearly they don’t want the competition to know just how good it is /s

Sarcasm tags ruin all sarcasm

And God said “some of will go to hell. Elon you’re first.”

we would have almost perfectly working FSD today I think if he had left them in.

Ya these are not 'taxi' related problems like dropping you off at the wrong location. These were all self driving problems of which Tesla has been developing for 10 years. Development is not magically going to accelerate because there are people in the back seat. Tesla on average reverts critical control to a driver on average every 380 miles. In a taxi that would be at least once every 2 days if it was somewhat busy. That is the car not being unsure of a situation and turning control over to a driver. Often with very short notice.

Well, to the extent that we have to trust the NHTSA with the information Tesla has returned, can we at least get the NHTSA's **opinion** on what the document says? Do they agree that Robotaxi is being conducted safely? Is there anything in the document that might be in the public's interest to know?

Not with visible cameras alone they won’t.

It’s a a sacrifice we are all willing to make.

Actually, they *chose* to not source sensors and develop their own based on a flawed financial analysis. Tesla thought they could do it quickly and at a lower cost, but it turns out their investment analysis excluded some fundamental development tasks and costs and ultimately Tesla dropped the sensor project.

An alternate take is that they created an “analysis” to justify their decision to plow forward despite not being able to source a critical component of an autonomous system.  The spice must flow…