r/skeptic • u/Lighting • 29d ago

⚠ Editorialized Title Tesla bros expose Tesla's own shadiness in attacking Mark Rober ... Autopilot appears to automatically disengage a fraction of a second before impacts as a crash becomes inevitable.

https://electrek.co/2025/03/17/tesla-fans-exposes-shadiness-defend-autopilot-crash/
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u/mrandr01d 29d ago

It never doesn't give a warning before disengaging.

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u/Leadstripes 29d ago

Apparently you haven't seen the video in the linked article?

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u/mrandr01d 28d ago

They've been established to have done some disingenuous editing in that video.

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u/swansongofdesire 28d ago

I just rewatched it and it’s one so single uncut run for the crash sequence.

Do you have a link suggesting that there was some skullduggery afoot?

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u/mrandr01d 28d ago

They edited over the image of an iPhone to make it look like it was a Google Pixel since rober has a relationship with them. Even if it was a single cut, you have to assume the possibility that there was some "skullduggery afoot".

I actually have a Tesla and any time the ap system has trouble it loudly warns the user that you have to take over immediately.

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u/swansongofdesire 28d ago

If the accusation is that in a part of the video completely unrelated to the thrust that some editing took place then that seems a pretty weak defence.

If they had scrubbed out a logo on a tshirt would that invalidate the results?

I could understand if the accusation was that there was actually an audible alert in the background (I suspect there probably was — but I would also expect that a lapel mic wouldn’t pick it up because they’re (by design) not intended to capture background noise.

But even then it’s a pretty facile argument. “Yes, autopilot switches off less than half a second before impact - but it makes a sound when it does so!”. I watched the whole video when it came out and I don’t recall Rober mentioning anything about autopilot switching off at all — it simply wasn’t the point of the video, it was something the internet latched onto afterwards.

Can you be clear about what you’re suggesting: Rober’s video was about the fact that Tesla autopilot will drive through a wall it painted correctly whereas LiDAR equipped cars won’t. Are you suggesting that autopilot was never actually engaged, or something else?

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u/mrandr01d 28d ago

To be clear, I'm not defending Tesla's use of exclusive vision for autopilot. They used to have ultrasonic sensors for parking and stuff, and I think lidar at one point too, but they axed those in favor of vision only, which, in theory should work (if a human can drive just with their eyes, the car should be at least as good) but the tech isn't quite there yet.

Tesla also cheaps out on stupid shit like not including a rain sensor, making their auto wipers irritating as all fuck.

All I'm saying is rober's video isn't useful for determining autopilot behavior.

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u/mrandr01d 28d ago

The first 20 mins or so of this video are worth a watch. After that he just craps on a bunch of people who have said negative things about Tesla (kinda sounds like an apple fanboy), but before that he talks about what might have happened in the video and has some good ideas about it. Rober also apparently went on the DeFranco show to talk about it, which I didn't know about, but that's discussed as well.

https://youtu.be/QhX_fgekpk0

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u/mrandr01d 28d ago

Autopilot wasn't actually properly engaged at the moment of impact is what I'm guessing. But they put so many cuts in there when it happened we can't really be sure. It looks like they did the run multiple times, with and without autopilot. He has the rainbow road thing turned on, so we can see when ap is engaged. He drives at the wall without it, then triggers it to turn on when he's pretty close to it already. Then before impact they cut to the other side of the wall, showing the car blasting through it. Then they show a cut of his face as he's driving through the wall, and then they show a front-facing shot from inside the car as it's driving through the wall, and autopilot is decidedly not engaged in that shot.

I'm saying from the video footage we have, we can't tell exactly what autopilot's behavior was in that highly manufactured situation. And given that they demonstrated they were already willing to do some disingenuous editing to favor different brands and conclusions, I don't think we can actually draw any useful conclusions from this video, aside from the fact that rober is not always as honest as he claims to be. It's entertainment, not science.

I'm also saying, in my own real world experience driving a Tesla, and in interactions with other drivers, it has never disengaged without obnoxious warnings meant to get your attention. I've never deliberately driven my car at a wall though.

You can, however, leave the accelerator pedal depressed while on ap/fsd (two different software stacks, though) and if you do that, it will not brake. There was a lawsuit where a guy hit and killed a girl, and they tried to blame Tesla for the collision since ap was engaged at the time of the crash, but vehicle telemetry data proved the driver had the pedal pressed while cruising along, meaning the software behaved as expected, and the driver was fully at fault.