Consumer Reports Slams Tesla for Moving Too Fast, Too Soon
Consumer Reports on Thursday joined the growing chorus of voices critical of Tesla Motors (TSLA) - Get Report and the company's Autopilot feature, calling on the company to disable part of the system and criticizing the automaker for using customers as "guinea pigs."
Tesla's system, which is designed to keep the vehicle in its lane and moving with traffic but is not a fully-autonomous driving experience, has been in the spotlight in recent weeks after the company disclosed a fatal accident in Florida involving a vehicle using Autopilot. Two other non-fatal incidents have surfaced in the weeks since, with federal safety regulators investigating how the system works and how it is perceived by drivers.
Tesla has argued that the incidents are tied to human error, noting that the Autopilot instructions insist that the driver keep his or her hands on the wheel and stay alert at all times. But Consumer Reports, echoing criticisms made by others, on Thursday said that Tesla deserves some of the blame if users are becoming distracted while in Autopilot, noting the company's own marketing campaign.
Consumer Reports noted that Tesla's press release announcing the feature promises to relieve drivers "of the most tedious and potentially dangerous aspects of road travel." The group called on Tesla to disable the auto-steering technology on vehicles until the system can be reprogrammed to monitor whether hands are kept on the wheel, and urged Tesla to abandon what it sees as the "misleading and potentially dangerous" Autopilot name.
"By marketing their feature as 'Autopilot,' Tesla gives consumers a false sense of security," Laura MacCleery, vice president of consumer policy and mobilization for Consumer Reports, said in a statement. Over time these systems can make driving safer, she said, "but today, we're deeply concerned that consumers are being sold a pile of promises about unproven technology."
Consumer Reports has a mixed history with Tesla. The group gave the Tesla Model S a perfect score on its initial review, the only vehicle to ever win such praise. But last fall and again this spring warned buyers about reliability problems, particularly in the first builds of Tesla's new Model X SUV.
Tesla isn't alone in developing early-stage, self-driving technologies, but while more traditional automakers have mostly limited their development to the testing track, Tesla has made Autopilot, a company-described "beta" product, available to customers. That decision was controversial even before this recent run of bad headlines, with a Volvo safety engineer earlier this year warning that Tesla's system gives the impression that it does more than it is actually capable of doing, potentially causing drivers to lower their guard.
MacCleery said she doesn't believe a beta product should be in the hands of customers, calling on federal safety regulators to insist on third-party testing and certification of advanced driving systems and to issue mandatory safety standards.
"Consumers should never be guinea pigs for vehicle safety 'beta' programs," she said. "At the same time, regulators urgently need to step up their oversight of cars with these active safety features."
Tesla has said previously that it has no intention of disabling Autopilot, which is both an important part of its marketing as well as an add-on feature that is a source of much-needed incremental revenue. The company, in a response to Consumer Reports, said that "while we appreciate well-meaning advice from any individual or group, we make our decisions on the basis of real-world data, not speculation by media."
But the company might not have a choice. The auto industry and its regulators tend to be far more cautious than the Silicon Valley culture that Tesla has grown out of, necessarily so given the impact of a car that crashes while using beta software can be far more dire than the impact of a laptop that crashes.
The Consumer Reports statement, if nothing else, adds to the narrative that Tesla is moving too far too fast. If that narrative continues to build, it is hard to imagine regulators not stepping in.