In a shocking turn of events that has absolutely nobody over the age of 12 surprised, the United States federal government has announced a formal investigation into yet another Tesla crash. Yes, the same Tesla that promised us a utopian future of silent, self-driving pods has instead delivered a dystopian present of twisted metal and regulatory paperwork. This time, the crash in question involved a vehicle allegedly operating on Autopilot, which is Tesla-speak for 'the car sometimes does the driving, but mostly just terrifies you into grabbing the wheel while it tries to merge into a lorry.'
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a government agency that normally moves with the speed of a sloth on Quaaludes, has finally stirred from its slumber. Why? Because the crash in question killed a pedestrian. It's a sad truth, but it seems human sacrifice is the only thing that gets these sorts of inquiries moving. I imagine the NHTSA offices are now buzzing with activity, with officials dusting off their 'serious faces' and Googling 'how to investigate a car that is also a computer on wheels.'
Let's be clear: Tesla's Autopilot is a misnomer. It's not 'auto' anything. It's more like 'occasionally helpful co-pilot who has had a few too many. ' The system has a history of failing to detect stationary objects, like fire trucks, because apparently, if it's not moving, it doesn't exist. This is the logic of a toddler playing hide-and-seek: 'I can't see you, so you're not real.' Except in this case, the toddler is driving a 2-ton battering ram at 70mph.
Elon Musk, Tesla's capricious monarch, has previously claimed that Tesla vehicles are 'the safest cars on the road,' which is true if you define 'safe' as 'will occasionally crash in a blaze of lithium-ion fire but also has a very nice touchscreen.' The problem is that Musk's claims are taken as gospel by the techno-literate faithful, who ignore the mounting pile of crash reports and instead focus on the latest firmware update that promises to play fart noises on demand.
But let's not be too harsh on Tesla. After all, they are pioneering something truly revolutionary: a new form of legal defence. 'Your honour, my client cannot be held responsible for the accident because the car was in control.' This is the automotive equivalent of 'the dog ate my homework,' except the dog is a 4,000-pound metal beast, and the homework is a human corpse.
The federal investigation will likely focus on whether Autopilot has any real safety standards or if it's just a glorified cruise control with a marketing budget bigger than its engineering one. I predict the outcome will be a series of recommendations that Tesla will ignore, followed by a token fine that amounts to pocket change for Musk, followed by another crash, followed by another investigation. It's a dance as old as time: the safety tango, where regulators and automakers step on each other's toes until someone dies.
In the meantime, Tesla owners will continue to 'supervise' their cars by playing Candy Crush or watching Netflix while their vehicle hurtles towards disaster. And whenever a crash happens, they'll make a statement that they 'trusted the software,' as if software has ever been trustworthy. Remember Windows 95? Exactly.
So here's to the NHTSA, our gallant regulators, who have finally decided to do their job. I'm sure they'll produce a thorough, well-researched report that will be promptly filed away and forgotten until the next Tesla-related tragedy. And Elon will be on Twitter, calling them an impediment to innovation while simultaneously unveiling a new hyperloop that will, I'm certain, never crash.
Because when you're a futurist, the future is always just around the corner, and the past is just a pile of corpses you never look back at.
