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Comment by perilunar | Hacker News Reader

> During the [recent streamed] drive, he observed, the Tesla system nearly blew through a red light, requiring an intervention by Musk who managed to brake in time to avoid any danger.

This makes it sound much more dramatic than it was (I watched the video). The car mistook a green arrow for a green light, and started to move forward, and Musk stopped it. It was pretty low key. Musk had his hands off the wheel during the drive because he was holding the phone streaming the video, but he was clearly alert and aware of what the car was doing — that's what the conversation with Elluswamy was mostly about.

A nag-free test mode makes a lot of sense for the engineers testing the cars. I don't see anything wrong with that.

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It's people like you that Elon hopes will downplay problems for him on social media.

The National Highway Transportation Administration is charged with the safety of the public foremost, not Tesla's stock price.

They will conduct their investigation, ask for whatever information they want. If it is no big deal, they will say so, not Elon on social media, or you parroting whatever he wants you to.

1. 'People like me'? What, the ones watching the demo video and not just taking some media hack's word for what happened?

2. I don't care about Tesla's stock price. I don't own any. Don't care about the NHTSA either — not American.

3. I'm not parroting anything — I watched the video before I saw the article, and thought the tone of the article was off.

Definitely not a low-key incident. There were cars turning left in front of him and a pedestrian near the car. Some people are chill with unsafe driving but it’s important to remember in this case he’s aggressively monetizing his own disregard for safety. This is a step above Uber drivers being jerks.

“Oh, it’s no big deal that our alpha autonomous car just tried to run into oncoming traffic, calm down. Our genius CEO was able to stop it, even while illegally operating his phone the whole time, so you’ll have no problem. It’s not like safely navigating the road, is the primary goal of this product.”

Why does Elon get a pass for brazenly breaking CA laws? This billionaire can’t afford a phone mount? Or even a passenger to hold it? Why is the public subjected to being unpaid test dummies?

Do you have a link to the video? In your description it sounds extremely irresponsible - he had his hands off the wheel because he was filming a selfie video? Sounds like he wasn't driving with due care and attention.

He wasn't making a 'selfie' — he was filming the demo drive. You watch the video and tell me if you think he was being "extremely irresponsible". I don't think he was.

Video link: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1djxXlVLaLOxZ

The intervention is ~19:50

He was filming the demo drive while being the actual test driver.

It's arguable whether he was compliant to the regulatory requirement that the test-driver is able to take control of the car at any time.

In a standard car, at least -most- countries would not consider him capable to properly operate the vehicle in such a state.

This might sound like nitpicking, but only until he hits YOUR car because he was distracted by filming a video of his new beta software which was glitching out...

Re "A nag-free test mode makes a lot of sense for the engineers testing the cars. I don't see anything wrong with that."

I think you meant "A nag free test mode for lab bench and test track use..."

Something something “everything is tested in production eventually”.

(I agree fully with you, I’m just being a bit glib.)

I don’t see how running a red light could be anything other than a big deal lol

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