No. of Recommendations: 3
He showed both normal and "self-driving" modes
He never entered the self-driving mode! He engaged adaptive cruise control with lane keeping (what Tesla calls "autopilot", a terrible name for what others call adaptive cruise control). Tesla also has a much more advanced feature that they call "FSD" (also a terrible name because it is neither F nor S yet). I use both features regularly and they are completely different features and have nothing at all to do with each other. Part of the problem is that Tesla picked god-awful names for these features, and another part of the problem is that people refuse to educate themselves what each of the features are and what they each can do.
Then he began the test by driving the car up to some medium speed, 42 mi/hr in one of his takes, and 40 mi/hr in another of his takes. Yes, Rober later posted that they did multiple takes, and rebuilt the painted styrofoam wall in between each take. Then with the car sped up, while aimed at the fake wall, he engaged the adaptive cruise control 4-5 seconds before reaching the painted styrofoam wall.
Now I suspect that any car on adaptive cruise control could be made to drive into a fake wall if you speed up enough and engage the system late enough. A better test for Rober to have done would have been to go a bit over half a mile up the road, engage the adaptive cruise control at 40 mi/hr, let the car drive the little over half mile over the next 40-50 seconds, and see if it slows and perhaps stops as it approaches the painted styrofoam wall.
