It's not staged, it's just a parking lot or something. It's mentioned directly in the article which it seems that most people have not even read:

"They demonstrated as much on the same day as my traumatic experience on I-64; After narrowly averting death by semi-trailer, I managed to roll the lame Jeep down an exit ramp, re-engaged the transmission by turning the ignition off and on, and found an empty lot where I could safely continue the experiment.

Miller and Valasek’s full arsenal includes functions that at lower speeds fully kill the engine, abruptly engage the brakes, or disable them altogether. The most disturbing maneuver came when they cut the Jeep’s brakes, leaving me frantically pumping the pedal as the 2-ton SUV slid uncontrollably into a ditch."

It certainly doesn't seem to be from the main transmission-shutdown incident, at least. I'm much less interested in the photo than in the fact that Condé Nast corporate thought it was a good idea to proudly Tweet this article to the world.

Did you watch the video? It's not staged. They killed the brakes (only possible below a certain speed).