WEBVTT - Enron Musk Ft. Ed Niedermeyer 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:08.520 All zone media. Wake up, everybody, I've got a new podcast. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:10.840 This is Better Offline and I'm your host ed ze Tron. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.360 Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.760 damning report about Tesla's autopilot and its full self driving systems, 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.000 which the nhtdsay referred to as not adequately ensuring that 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.760 drivers maintain their attention on the driving task. One second, though, 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.640 to delineate between the systems, autopilot is more like a 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.440 sixty version of cruise control keipping your car and lanes, 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.480 changing lanes when you hit a thing, hitting the indicator, 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:47.880 and following the car in front of you on the 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.560 highway very basic. Full self driving is when your car 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.200 drives itself. It makes turns, you tell it where to 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.040 go on the GPS, and it goes through intersections, follows lights, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.480 and a bunch of other things it appears to not 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.760 really be capable of doing, with the NHTSA saying that 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.399 both autopilot and full self driving created a trend of 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.679 avoidable crashes involving hazards that would have been visible to 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.440 an attentive driver. The report, which covers the period between 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.360 January twenty eighteen and August twenty twenty three, described a 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.880 critical safety gap to quote CNBC's Laura Colodney in the 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.200 autopilot's system, which contributed to at least four hundred and 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.280 sixty seven collisions resulting in at least thirteen fatalities and 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.560 forty nine injuries. Musk has recently tried to convince investors 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.960 that Tesla is now all in on AI and his 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.320 flimsy dreams of having a robotaxi company. This somehow also 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.120 resulted in Musk firing the majority of the team behind 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.119 the one Tesla product Everybody Likes It's supercharger network, leaving 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.400 the status of the North American charging standard created with 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.720 Tesla's help in jeopardy. To explain what the hell is 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.440 going on with Tesla, I brought in Ed Niedermeyer, who 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.680 has been writing and commenting on the auto industry and 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.040 mobility text since two an a. He's the author of Ludicrous, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.640 The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, and the co host 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.480 of the Autono cost He lives in Portland, Oregon. I'm 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:13.720 really happy to talk to him, okay, Ed, So please 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:15.800 tell me what has been happening in the world of 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.640 elon Musk. In the last two weeks, I want to. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:24.000 Say, there's a lot, a lot of a lot has 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.680 been happening, and I think, you know, a lot of 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.360 it has really deep roots. Like a lot of the 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.359 things that are happening are are so dramatic right now, 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.680 but they've been sort of been building towards us for 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:38.320 a really long time. I would say, like at a 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:44.320 high level, what appears to be happening is essentially, you know, 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.800 Tesla as a as a stock, as a perception, as 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.320 a set of stories and dreams that that Elon Musk 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.080 has been weaving for for many years now has essentially 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.760 overtaken Tesla as as a as a company, as a 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.120 real thing. And I think, you know, from the very 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.399 beginning of sort of stumbling onto this company, the defining 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.119 characteristic of Tesla is this gap between perception and reality. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.560 And you know, I've written a lot about the problems 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.720 that Tesla has as a company, and yet you know, 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.720 for five years, much longer really five years since my 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.799 book came out, you know, Elon Musk has been able 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.519 to sort of use perception to kind of make a 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.200 lot of those issues not matter through raising money or 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.519 you know, sort of creating diversions and all kinds of 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.160 other things. And I think what's happening now is that, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.480 you know, the the problems with the car business are 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:40.760 so fundamental the and and there's nothing in place to 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.240 sort of solve them. And in the car business, you know, 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.360 things take time. Problems take time to solve, especially problems 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.840 like we don't have good new product that can compete 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.120 in the market. And so you know, we've sort of 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.640 reached this point now where it seems like Elon is 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.400 not even really trying to save the reality of this 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:03.000 business and is sort of all in on perception. And 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.360 that's sort of taking a bunch of different forms. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.240 So in practice, though, what does it mean that it's 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.040 escaped reality? 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.120 So you know, Tesla's a very nearly a two million 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.320 unit a year car business, and having built that up 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.320 from nothing is like incredible, Like it's a historic achievement 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.160 in the world of cars. The problem is is that 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.920 that seems to have peaked, right, So they did about 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.719 one point eight five million last year, and essentially sales 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.760 are going down and they are slashing prices and slashing 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.920 margins as fast as they can to keep that decline 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.200 from getting any worse. But really what happened is that 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.159 is that during COVID they were able to print through 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.320 a number of sort of unique set of circumstances, they 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.280 were able to sort of print really impressive profits that 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.640 made this business seem very very real, and it was 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.440 very very real. The problem is has created this complacency. 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.080 In order to record those profits, they've basically been starving 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.799 research and development and new product investment in new product. 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.960 And so now now that sales are declining, you know, 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.520 they can cut the prices to kind of slow that decline, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.359 but the only thing that's going to actually turn it 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.359 around is new is actual new product, and those investments 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.520 haven't been made. And and he had the opportunity on 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.920 the call to say, you know, we understand the problem. 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.520 We're taking it seriously. And he sort of vaguely mentioned 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.760 like new product is coming, but he did not sort 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.560 of describe it in in the kind of credible way 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.239 that that is, you know, sort of makes it clear 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.160 that that there is actually a plant to solve that problem. 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:36.839 And that was the latest invest the cult just to 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:38.080 be specifics yeah. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.560 And and so instead of that, right, he's he's gone 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.839 all in on this idea that Tesla's an AI company, 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.840 that it's a you know that's self driving this. They're 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.960 going to show a robotaxi, you know, and and and 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.600 that's that's pumping the stock, right, that's doing the thing 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.599 that that traditionally happens. The problem is is that those 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.240 things don't make any money, Like, they don't even make revenue, 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:58.719 let alone profit, right. 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.480 And uh, the AI site lose the money. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.960 Yeah, yeah, and and again you know what's what's really 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.760 puzzling and troubling about what's going on right now is is, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.960 you know, Tesla has on paper something like thirty billion 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.320 dollars in cash a little bit less, right, which is 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.080 enough to really solve like a lot of these problems. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.839 And if and if he gone on on that call 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.840 and said, you know, we're gonna we're gonna take ten 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.440 billion dollars and we're gonna use it to to really 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.200 like invest in a whole new generation of products and 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.320 give them some detail about what that was, you know, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.720 I think things would be we would be having a 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.360 very different conversation right now. And instead they're spending what 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.280 are they spending money on? They've been spending on since 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.000 the pandemic, you know, the cyber truck, you know, and 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.760 and now sort of lots of GPUs. They they're in 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.679 like this race to buy more of an Nvidia's production 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.240 than you know, these other big and by the way, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:51.839 very very profitable tech companies. 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.200 Can I just ask a quick question though? You say 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.600 these GPUs so like the ones used to train models 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.040 and run models like Cope and Ai. All these the 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.640 same GPUs that Mosk bought for Xai his AI company 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.160 attached to Twitter, or these a completely different set. 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.440 Presumably they're completely different. You know, Tesla is a publicly 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.240 traded a publicly traded company and X's is private. So 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.240 you know that said he does also very much, you know, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.320 blur these these boundaries within his sort of empire, and frankly, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:23.559 you know, in ways that are not always strictly legal. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.520 So there may be it may be that Tesla is 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:32.080 using some of Xai's hardware and vice versa. It's hard 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:32.760 to know for sure. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.920 So walk me through this NHTSA report what happened there? 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:39.000 Because it looks bad? 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.200 Yeah, so some history is kind of important here, right, So, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.800 so first of all, you know, the Tesla has admitted 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.840 that crashes have involved autopilot including fatal one since twenty sixteen. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:52.920 The very first time, right, and people don't always know 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.120 it was a guy in China whose family had the 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.200 brilliant idea of, you know what if we like maintain 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.680 chain of custody on the vehicle data. And that was 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:03.520 the first time that Tesla admitted, oh yeah, out of 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.000 pilot was actually involved. And so this may have been 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:11.560 going on for even longer than anyone realizes. NTSB, which is, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.360 you know, this investigative body. They don't have any regulatory power, 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.480 but they're really good investigators. They mostly look at air crashes. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.520 They were really early and looking at three fatal crashes 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.360 that happened between twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen. And they 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:29.680 concluded essentially that Tesla's system looks sort of self driving enough, 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:32.719 but it operates in areas you're allowed to use it 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.080 in places where it doesn't it's not designed for, and 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.120 people become complacent and they stop paying attention. It's not 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.760 good enough to trust your life to. It's just good 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.040 enough to kind of make you complacent and not paying 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.840 attention when when it runs into something it can't handle. 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:47.480 And these are the findings of the old report. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.360 This is the NTSB. Yes, there's a different body, and 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.280 they recommend it to NITSA, who has maybe less good 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.400 at investigating stuff like this, especially with human factors, but 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.800 has all the regulatory power. And they said, look, this 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:03.360 is a problem, you know, And knits A had an 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.640 enforcement guidance at the time that said, you know, if 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.360 the a system like autopilot, you know, is prone to 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.480 foreseeable misuse, you know, that can be a defect and 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:15.480 we can recall it. And yet somehow that was never 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.240 used from twenty sixteen, and it wasn't until twenty twenty 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:24.800 one that NITSA finally said. You know, they did two 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.160 things essentially the summer of twenty twenty one, they opened 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.360 an engineering analysis of autopilots, sort of the first step 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.120 towards identifying a defect and ordering a recall. They also, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.760 at the same time, and the connection here was not 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.680 always obvious, they started collecting data from across the industry 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.440 and so now when you have crashes that involve any 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.360 of the other sort of level two driver assistant systems 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.560 out there, you have to report that to the government. 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.920 So they've been simultaneously since the summer of twenty one 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.200 investigating Tesla specifically, but then also collecting data from the 0:09:58.200 --> 0:09:59.760 rest of the industry to kind of get a sense 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.520 of of, you know, is this a unique problem to Tesla, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.679 And pretty clearly the answer to that was yes, because 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.640 what we've learned is that in December of twenty twenty three, 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.800 you know, they they basically took you know, the these 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:19.480 findings that showed, you know, a good deal of of 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.480 crashes happening, including fatal ones, and basically forced Tesla to 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.600 do a recall. They did that in December over two 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:29.760 million vehicles, and they did it with an over the 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.760 air software update. And for me, you know, having watched 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.400 nits a sort of drag its heels frankly or at 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.719 least move very very slowly to address what I think 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.719 is a it's been a pretty understandable problem and and 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.520 a recall worthy problem for for a long time now. 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:48.400 I kind of thought, you know, okay, they're going to 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.040 take let Tesla do a software update, pretend like something 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.600 has happened, and sort of move on. The thing is 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.040 is that we were still seeing crashes happen. In fact, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.880 there was a fatal crash literally the day before. Uh, 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.199 you know this this most recent earnings call. And so 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.920 now what what Nitsa's is doing is they're actually looking 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.480 into the remedy to that recall. They're saying, you know, well, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.480 we're we because these things keep happening, we may we 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.760 think that maybe just updating the software wasn't enough to 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.720 actually fix this problem. That to me is it's a 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.400 very rare for NITSA to do one of these it's 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.040 called like a recall query. Uh, it's very rare for 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.040 them to do that. That strongly suggests that that that 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:29.520 they're really actually going to hold Tessel. 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.520 To account on recall query something that happened before this 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.840 new report, or is that what this current report is. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.319 So this so what's really interesting is is that this 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:42.320 report is essentially the results of nitsa's investigation over since 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.040 since twenty twenty one essentially, And and they go through 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.640 and they describe sort of, you know, how they found 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.240 out about all these different kinds of crashes and how 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.760 they sort of analyze them and basically about half of 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:53.199 them they were able to kind of throw them out 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.079 right away, and then from the other half they're able 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.840 to drill down and identify, you know, a number of 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.360 kinds of crashes that to keep happening that are all 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.840 indicative of this problem that you know NTSB identified, you 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.520 know way back in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.840 and and so so what was interesting is is that 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.319 data is they had taken that to Tesla and basically, 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.400 reading between the lines, strong arm them into the recall. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.960 And that's often how recalls happen is that either either 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.679 the automaker does it voluntarily or the or the investigator 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.280 or the regulator brings a body of evidence to them 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.360 and says, listen, like you either do this or we're 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:32.720 gonna or we're gonna do it for you. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:38.240 So, so this nh TSA report, is it does it 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.720 do anything? Or is it just is this something Tesla 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.520 received before it came out? Like how was this delivered 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.160 and what happens as a result of it. 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.720 So, so usually this stuff usually what happens is that 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.319 right they build up this this body of evidence, they 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:53.640 take it to the automaker, they essentially use it to 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.720 force them into a recall, and then once the recall happens, 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.400 usually you never see it. It doesn't become public. So 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.880 the fact that this is public is huge. 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.760 Yeah, that was what confused me. This feels like a 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:06.439 strange document for everyone to see. 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.600 Yeah, and it is absolutely I mean, look, everything about 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.640 this is kind of novel territory. NITSA has not really 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.920 gotten into this sort of automated driving driving assistant stuff before, 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.040 so there's no playbook here. But within the context of 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.040 automotive regulation, it is rare and and and what it 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:28.440 implies is that they forced this recall. Tesla did the 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.160 easiest thing possible, which is, we'll just update the software 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:31.640 over the air. 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.640 And NITSA, what did that update do if you if 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:37.160 you've used it? 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.160 So so it appears have been a couple of them. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:41.760 And and I think and that's one of the things 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.200 Nissa's looking into is exactly what what did you do? 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.760 But but fundamentally, the only thing that they really could 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.520 do was to essentially create a lot more nags in 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.640 the system. And nature when you know, you have the 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.600 hands off the wheel or whatever, and and the system 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.120 is like, you know, take control, take control, take control. 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.360 What people love, what consumers love about autopilot is that 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.079 it doesn't do that very much, right. It kind of 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.960 lets you sort of sit back, which is which is 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.839 the problem. Right, people like the unsafety. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.800 The feature and the problem it seems exactly yeah. 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.960 And so and so you know, and and by the way, 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.200 Tesla has has gotten around that sort of by making 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:24.239 a very very misleading safety claims, statistical safety claims about autopilot. 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.160 So people they're getting their cake and they're eating it too, right, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.320 They're they're the system is designed really to look self driving, 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.320 so that kind of helps the stock price. It's it's 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.840 designed to enable you to kind of look away and 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.000 do other things that you shouldn't be doing while you're driving, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.680 but it comes with this statistic that is comforting where 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.960 it's like, no, this is actually safer than a human too. So, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.040 so Tesla is kind of that. This is why it's 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.520 so popular. It's the lack of safety with the veneer 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.400 of a of a fake you know, safety statistic is 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.120 what's made it so popular. And frankly, this is why 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.200 I've been skeptical that and it's a wood really do anything. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:06.640 But the fact that they forced the recall. Tesla took 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.360 the easy route. NITSA could have just said, yeah, okay, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.200 we we've gone through the motions here, let's let's move. 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.440 We've done yeah, let's move on right, But instead, because 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.800 these crashes are still happening, you know, NITSA feels the 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.840 need to to not just say, you know, we need 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.920 to look at at what you did to address this 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.600 recall and make sure that it's actually solving the problem. Implicitly, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.360 we we don't think it is. But then it also 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.200 released this this data that that to the public now, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.520 so now now all of us can go and look 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.680 and say, okay, yeah, like there's a reason that this 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.200 recall happened. This isn't just you know, you know, dark Brandon, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.320 you know, cracking down on Elon because because you know, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.880 you can't handle his realness or whatever. Yeah, yeah, like 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.680 this is not just some politically motivated thing like like 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.120 and this is the flip side of NITSA taking their 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.640 time on this. As frustrating as it's been, They've built 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.440 up a lot of data not just about Tesla but 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.640 about the rest of the industry that shows Tesla does 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.840 have a unique problem here. And I think you know 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:11.320 what they're going to show is that is that the 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.760 update they've done so far isn't going to be enough, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.240 and that really leaves Tesla in a pickle because there's 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:28.920 not a lot of other great options for fixing these problems. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.800 And it seems also that this report basically gives plaintiffs 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.000 the ability to sue Tesla on some level, it seems 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.160 like this will create a bunch of litigation oh against 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:41.720 the company. 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.080 Yeah, and there already has been you know Tesla just 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.040 right also right before this most recent call, they settled 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.760 a lawsuit dating back to a crash, back to a 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.800 twenty eighteen that you know that that lossuit have been 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.280 going on for a really long time. And I'm sure 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.160 what nis Is done has has played a role in that. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.959 Absolutely all this data, everything that KNITSA has put out 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.840 in the public is just it's just like handing sort 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.080 of loaded ammunition clips to to all the lawyers out there. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.000 And frankly, that's kind of how regulation in this country works. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.000 You know, Uh, our regulators will do what they have 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.359 to when they have to, when when it becomes unfeasible 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.800 for them to sort of ignore stuff. But generally speaking, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:27.680 a lot of regulation effectively happens through uh, you know, lawsuits, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.200 through civil civil legal litigation. 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.160 So do you think that this leads to them actually 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.160 having to do something with the autopilot or are they 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.600 just gonna hope that that don't get sued too much. 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.760 It feels like they may. This feels like a normal 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.120 company would just pull Auto Pilot entirely. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.119 Yeah, So, so I think that's it's gonna it's gonna 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.320 come to something like that. So because this over there 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.639 update didn't so, so so they did over their update 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.840 that that kind of keeps people being nagged more, right, 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.359 and and A it's anest stopping the crashes from happening, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.240 but B it's really eroding what people like about the product. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.920 And and essentially again like it gets back to Tesla, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.199 you know, is willing to create products that lawyers at 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.359 other companies would just put the kabash on. They wouldn't 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.920 let it happen. So so Tesla kind of assuming that 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.800 nits a you know, is going to find that that 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.080 the current fix is insufficient. There are sort of two 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.480 basic routes that that Tesla can take. One is they 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.400 can dramatically reduce sort of the it's called the control 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.880 authority and the and the capabilities of the system. Essentially, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.960 the the you know, a system, a driver assistant system 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.520 should be designed to assist the driver and the fundamental 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.800 flaw of of autopilot is that it actually is more 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.439 designed to look like it the car is almost self driving, 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.560 and those are two different things. So instead of the 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.400 automations assisting you. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.560 Yeah, how would they different actually really get into that? 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.000 Yeah, so okay. So the feature that has the best 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.880 proven record of improving safety outcomes is called automated emergency braking, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.240 And essentially people don't even know it's on the car. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.120 But if you get yourself into a really sticky situation, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.960 someone cuts you off something like that, the car will 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.560 there's forward collision warning. The car will warn you, and 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.320 then the car will actually break itself that combination of 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.240 those two things, and again people don't even really know 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.800 they're there for the most part. You know, something like 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.119 a forty percent reduction in frontal crashes. Okay, so like 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:34.720 proven statistical safety advantage, and it's because the critical piece 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.280 of it is that you can you don't rely on it. 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:38.959 No one sits there and says, oh, it's cool if 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.640 I just accelerate into you know, this semi truck. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.160 Or whatever, I'm just going to crash into various objects 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:44.879 and see what happens. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.720 Yeah, you don't get this over reliance. But when with 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.880 these level two systems, and it's a combination of how 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.800 the system is designed, right, it's designed to look as 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.360 if it's self driving, convince people itself driving, and then 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.399 puts the driver in what's called a you know, a 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.359 vigilance task, which which means, you know, and people are 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.520 constantly talking about what bad drivers humans are. The reality 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.840 is we're actually considering we're not evolved to move at 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.080 these speeds and everything. We're actually pretty darn good at it. 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.080 We just drive a lot of miles and over those miles, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.879 bad things happen. The the what we're worse at than 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.440 driving are these vigilance tasks. And we know this from 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.760 research going back one hundred years. And like you know, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.600 radar operators in World War Two. You know, you sit 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.359 there and you force someone to watch a screen and 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.400 then when you know, one little, you know thing happens, 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.119 you know, you have to respond within a very very 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.040 short amount of time. This is called a vigilance task. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.879 We're terrible at that. And if you think about, you 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.400 know what that can mean. You know, things happen fast 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.639 on the freeway if you're even slightly not paying attention, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:47.600 and all of a sudden there's a situation. You have 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.520 to be able to read what's going on, decide on 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.119 the right course of action, and then implement it properly. 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.720 I mean, this is insanely hard for people to do 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.800 and and and it creates, you know, these kinds of 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:05.120 thing fafety problems. So so you know, I think fundamentally 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.800