Elon Musk Calls Recent Tesla Crash Coverage 'Super Messed Up'
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is firing back at his critics at a torrid pace, this time saying that the media’s reporting on its recent crashes, ongoing NTSB investigation, and reasons for not incorporating safety features is biased.
Calling its recent coverage of the second Tesla crash this month “super messed up,” his latest shot involves the recent crash of a Model S into a fire truck, resulting in the driver sustaining a broken ankle while calling out U.S. auto accident statistics.
It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the ~40,000 people who died in US auto accidents alone in past year get almost no coverage https://t.co/6gD8MzD6VU
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2018
In Tesla’s Q1 conference call, Musk also confirmed “a steady increase in the percentage of miles driven using Autopilot” and that there were drops in usage when negative media coverage prevails.
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This week, Musk also disputed a recent Wall Street Journal article that explained Tesla’s reasons for not adding “more tech warnings to inattentive drivers’ using eye tracking and steering wheel sensors to its Autopilot suite due to high costs. A follow-up comment by Musk also tried to rebuke safety concerns, citing 2017 NHTSA data of automotive fatalities occurring every 86 million miles versus 320 million miles for Tesla.
Sources: Tesla engineers wanted to add eye tracking and other sensors to Autopilot at its debut to help alert drivers but were rejected by Musk over cost fears ( @timkhiggins / Wall Street Journal) https://t.co/AhnRjaTDmShttps://t.co/f7Dmqh7ECd
— Techmeme (@Techmeme) May 14, 2018
A version of this story originally appeared on Hybrid Cars.
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He has successfully steered the media to cover toastla to such an extent that automotive sites will publish at least 4 news stories about them daily. Yet somehow; he wasn't counting on his dirty laundry being aired too.