Much ink, both virtual and of the real kind, has been spilled covering the fervor that emanates from the Tesla community. Tesla fans and supporters have been branded anything from cultists to fanboys or stans, and the best example of how you can build a loyal, trustworthy following by delivering on your promises.
Elon Musk, as far as the fans are concerned and according to the trust investors place in Tesla, currently the world’s highest-valued carmaker, can do little wrong. Sure, since he’s human as well, he can occasionally make mistakes, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed, overlooked, or otherwise explained.
Unless we’re talking about the blind faith he seems to place in the sense of responsibility of those who drive his cars.
Again, Musk’s insistence that Level 5 Autonomy is basically around the corner and his decision to release the Full Self-Driving Beta upgrade to the public for testing have generated plenty of controversy, debate, and media attention. Musk believes that full autonomy is within reach, and he wants Tesla to attain it before anyone else. It’s an admirable goal and, more likely than not, an achievable one, but Musk wants to get there by leaps and bounds, with help from the Tesla community and by placing full trust into the drivers.
Yet the same Tesla drivers can sometimes be the world’s greatest idiots. This isn’t about overgeneralizing and casting every Tesla driver out there under a negative light – that would be plain stupid. This is about paying close attention to the still-widespread phenomenon of Tesla drivers being completely irresponsible at the wheel, on grounds that they’re driving a car whose features include Autopilot and the aforementioned FSD.
We’ve all seen and read about those viral videos of men and women putting their Teslas on Autopilot and then doing whatever else they thought would look good for social media. In a bid for clicks and views, they catch naps, eat, move into the backseat to stretch their legs, dance, read books, and, in one particular, highly-mediated instance, even engaged in some very-casual lovemaking. It was actually a very business-oriented video if you get the drift.
The latest comes from some young fellow named Johnathon Cox, who is active across the biggest platforms: he is premium_hubz on TikTok and Mr. Hub on YouTube, and uses his own name on Instagram. He is also an idiot.
In November last year, he posted a video to his TikTok in which he showed off his 2020 Tesla Model 3, including the amazing Autopilot. Viewers could see him apparently sleeping at the wheel and then snoozing in the backseat, while the car drove itself at 64 mph (103 kph).
A longer video posted to YouTube shows that his mother (?!) was the one to actually record him “sleeping” and that, not surprisingly, the stunt had been planned all along. The longer video, which is just now starting to gain more traction thanks to coverage in the auto community (hat tip to The Drive) also shows that, though staged, Johnathon took his damn sweet time not paying attention to the road, let alone keep his hands on the wheel.
Legally, Tesla is covered in case something goes wrong due to misuse of its driver-assist tech, whether that’s Autopilot or FSD. After all, it does say on all forms that users should be paying attention to the road and their hands on the wheel, ready to take over from the machine at a moment’s notice. Technically, as Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE) noted in October last year, with the launch of FSD, the “systems requiring human driver oversight are not self-driving and should not be called self-driving.”
Semantics aside, Tesla still places too much trust in its customers. In doing so, it refuses to do what other carmakers have done to prevent situations like this from happening, like using some type of driver monitoring tech that would turn off Autopilot in case they were not paying attention. And the terrible and terribly stupid things happening in the latest video, which you can also see below, is why it should.
Some people are idiots, and no matter how smart the car, it won’t be able to cure them of their stupidness. Not only do people like this give Tesla a bad name, but they’re could potentially drag all autonomy efforts down with them.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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