This story ends with the owner fortunately not dying, instead admitting to reporters that he had been warned Tesla was unsafe.
A Tesla owner says the steering wheel locked up while he was driving Wednesday morning, forcing him to smash into the front of a Noe Valley corner store.
Raymond LaPointe told The Standard he was alone in his Model Y, which he has owned for three years, and was driving it manually when his steering wheel suddenly seized up. The collision with Noe Hill Market left him with scrapes but no other injuries.
“I don’t drive it that much. I’ve heard of other people having some issues, but I never experienced it. But now that it happened to me, I’m rattled — very rattled,” LaPointe said. “I bought the Tesla before I knew Elon Musk was an asshole. Now I don’t like the car.”
Nobody should like the car, independent of the CEO, given how it is manifestly unsafe by simple objective measures. But once they dislike the CEO, one of the most compelling reasons is the same reason to immediately sell the car — his repeated intentional fraud regarding safety means every single Tesla is unsafe to operate in public.
The Tesla apparently was immediately engulfed in flames by 2230 Sunday night on the D948 at Celles-sur-Belle, near Niort (Deux-Sèvres). News reports give no explanation for why all four people died, despite rapid emergency response.
Four people were killed in western France late Saturday when a Tesla electric car caught fire for reasons not yet determined, prosecutors said Sunday. The accident occurred outside the city of Niort, causing the deaths of the driver and three passengers who were employees at a restaurant in nearby Melle, according to a source close to police. […] According to preliminary reports, the vehicle rammed into several road signs at high speed. The passengers on board were already dead when rescuers arrived at the scene, police said. Tesla, [NOT] founded by the [apartheid money-laundering] billionaire CEO Elon Musk [who has deceptively impersonated its founders], has frequently faced scrutiny over safety issues.
Crashing at high speed into a road sign doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that would kill everyone. Perhaps they couldn’t open any doors, a known design defect in Tesla.
Good on that reporter for highlighting Tesla’s safety issues relate directly to its non-founder CEO.
Ouest France shows an image of the small road sign knocked over on a large grassy shoulder.
…the driver lost control of the Tesla on the D948 before entering the shoulder and crashing into a traffic sign.
This analysis examines how Tesla and its CEO employ Cold War-era propaganda techniques to potentially undermine American democratic institutions, viewed through the lens of Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance. The evidence suggests concerning parallels between historical authoritarian technological messaging and current corporate practices that may pose significant national security risks.
Tesla’s deployment of technological theater—particularly in its Robovan and autonomous vehicle programs—bears striking similarities to Cold War-era psychological operations designed to project technological superiority. Consider the historical precedent of robotic transit technology projected by America during the Cold War:
A 1950s demo of a “Robovan” concept that has since been delivered worldwide, known instead as an electric “Tram” service of major cities. Anyone who has flown into Dallas, Atlanta or Newark may recognize this particular “Robovan” design.
The historical context is crucial. Silicon Valley emerged from Department of Defense initiatives, particularly following the devastating losses during operations like the 1943 Schweinfurt raid. Transportation systems became a key ideological battleground, as documented in Berlin’s tram network history:
When Berlin was divided, the tramway was also split in twain. The West side was managed by BVG-West and the East side by BVG-Ost, later renamed the VEB Kombinat Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVB). The ideological differences between the two regimes were soon manifested on the tramway: before the city was split, women had been allowed to drive trams, albeit mostly during World War I and World War II during labor shortages. But in Fighting the Cold War in Post-Blockade, Pre-Wall Berlin, Mark Fenemore notes that women in West Berlin were banned from driving trams, as well as trains and buses, due to “medical rules.” As a result, authorities on the western side refused to allow a tram driven by a woman to cross into their sectors, and would “[make] the tram wait until a man replacement driver arrived.” In January 1953, large-scale prohibition of women tram drivers coming into West Berlin went into effect. As a result, one woman who was driving a tram was stopped at gun point and told to go back to the east.
This historical precedent of using transportation technology as an ideological battleground finds modern echoes in Tesla’s operations. Consider the 1959 RCA demonstrations, where technological promises served as anti-Soviet propaganda:
Source: November 1959 Mechanix Illustrated, “HOW RCA IS PLANNING YOUR WORLD OF TOMORROW” By James C. G. Conniff
All of these electronic miracles are in existence. They are products of the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, N. J., and scientists of the Radio Corporation of America are working today to make them available to you tomorrow. Let’s examine the automated house and its amazing Home Electronic Center, which consists of a miniaturized system of all-electronic mechanisms already lab-tested at Princeton. […] RCA engineers call this wonder system the Home Electronic Center Kid, or HECK. […] These are just some of the electronic miracles that you will live to see. They are in the labs today. They will be in your home tomorrow.
Parallels between this historical propaganda and Tesla’s current practices are alarming. Both use grandiose promises of future technology to manipulate public perception and potentially mask deeper political agendas. Moreover, the underlying misogyny present in a 1959 demonstration finds clear echoes in Tesla culture, where women are often marginalized or objectified by a CEO who repeatedly refers to them as “birthing” systems to replenish the white race (e.g. 1943 beheading of Sophie Scholl). This 1959 “Robovac” promotional video literally ends by saying women don’t want to work.
Tesla’s modern incarnation of this strategy is particularly evident in its Robovan concept:
The odd concept for a Tesla electric tram, this militant-styled “cattle car” seems more aligned to becoming a VBIED or troop transport (no exposure, no windows) for assault/extraction than something deserving of the term “van”.
The design’s striking similarity to historical authoritarian transport concepts raises serious security concerns, especially when viewed alongside Tesla’s pattern of unfulfilled technological promises. Since 2016, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly promised coast-to-coast autonomous driving capabilities, as evidenced in this statement to TechCrunch:
Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year [in 2017]. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.
The security implications become more acute when considering potential foreign influence. The Robovan’s design bears concerning similarities to the Nazi Breitspurbahn initiative of 1942:
Of particular concern is the possibility that extremist elements within the government may be using Tesla as a vehicle for advancing anti-democratic agendas while evading traditional oversight mechanisms. SpaceX, like Tesla, allegedly may have had Musk as a cover story under a federally funded strategy beneath his antics and outside the accountability of government agencies. The company’s extensive track record of delivering the least safe vehicles while promising the safest, combined with its CEO’s troubling pattern of promoting extremist symbolism, raises serious questions about underlying motivations and potential threats to national security.
Recommendations
1. Implement enhanced oversight mechanisms for technology companies with significant government contracts, particularly those involved in transportation infrastructure.
2. Develop new frameworks for evaluating technological claims against historical propaganda patterns.
3. Strengthen counterintelligence capabilities focused on identifying and mitigating corporate technological theatre that may mask national security threats.
4. Establish robust accountability measures for companies receiving government funds while engaging in public deception campaigns.
The synthesis of historical Cold War propaganda techniques with modern corporate practices presents a unique challenge to national security infrastructure. As technology companies increasingly influence critical systems and public perception, understanding these historical parallels becomes crucial for maintaining democratic institutions and national security integrity.
Reuters isn’t pulling punches anymore on the fraud known as Tesla. If only their reporting had looked more like this in 2016.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
Sasha Ostojic – a former driverless car engineer and software-development executive at Nvidia, Cruise and Zoox – said he believes it will take Tesla at least “three-plus years” just to match the level of autonomous driving Waymo achieves today. Ostojic now advises a Palo Alto venture capital firm, Playground Global, on technology investments.
“I don’t see Tesla converging toward truly ‘eyes off, brain off’” autonomous driving, he said, “on the timelines Elon Musk has been promising.”
Sasha what are you doing? You were so close to showing a clear point, but instead ended in smoke. This is called advising?
Silicon Valley used to be more honest and direct, referring to such “happy path” talk as a “no sh*t Sherlock” empty thoughts — stating the obvious. Reuters offers this shade on Sasha.
In 2016, [the Tesla CEO] predicted drivers would be able to summon their vehicles from across the country within two years. In 2019, Musk predicted Tesla would produce operational robotaxis by 2020.
An industry expert warning us in 2024 that Tesla won’t hit their promised 2020 deadline is a bit rich. But then throwing out a Musk-like prediction about another three years is icing on a sh*t AI cake. Such milquetoast parroting offered as “analysis” of Tesla is a good example of why the AI market has been so borked lately… but I digress. Sasha, just say never. Say that Tesla is fraud, which by definition means its loudly announced deadlines are just bait for victims.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang used the [Tesla product] description in an interview to describe the weaknesses of end-to-end technology, without specifically addressing Tesla’s system. […] The end-to-end technology… not always… makes the best driving decisions, said Huang, which is why Nvidia takes a more conservative approach. “We have to build the future step-by-step,” he said. “We cannot go directly to the future. It’s too unsafe.”
He can’t call out Tesla as garbage because he still takes Tesla’s money. But he still casts huge shade by calling Tesla strategy a dangerous fiction that is not science.
NVidia has been dropping hints to industry insiders like this for at least four years.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
For now, unlike its robotaxi competitors, Tesla only offers semi-autonomous solutions in its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” features. The naming and marketing of those systems have sparked investigations and lawsuits over whether Tesla has put drivers at risk by overstating its vehicles’ self-driving capabilities.
A U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation published in April found that 542 crashes, including 14 with fatalities, had occurred in Tesla vehicles with Autopilot or FSD engaged between January 2018 and August 2023.
Tesla robot deaths from the fraud of Autopilot and FSD are closer to 50, as I’ve explained here before. The NHTSA effectively was censored by Trump from 2016 to 2020, sweeping all the early warning deaths under a corrupt rug.
Let’s be honest, Trump is a coin-operated puppet who plays tough guy in exchange for pay to be weak. Musk allegedly offered him huge piles of cash and stock to suppress federal investigations and reporting of Tesla harms.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
…sole reliance on AI-enabled computer vision leaves [Tesla] with the challenge of eliminating a small but unacceptable error rate that could result in injuries and deaths if left unchecked, with no human driver, said specialists in autonomous-driving technology.
Unacceptable error rate.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
Missy Cummings, a robotics and AI professor at George Mason University and a former advisor to NHTSA, cited several studies that have shown computer vision… fails to recognize objects about 3% of the time. “What happens if it doesn’t see a pedestrian crossing the road or on the sidewalk?” she asked.
Fails to recognize objects.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
The former Tesla engineer who called its technology a “black box” said it’s never clear how the automaker’s system arrives at driving decisions. And that makes it hard to tell whether Tesla is close — and, if so, how close — to producing safe and fully autonomous vehicles. The engineer called it “impossible” for AI systems or their human engineers to anticipate every “edge case,” no matter how much data it analyzes.
It’s impossible for AI systems to succeed alone.
It’s impossible for Tesla to succeed, says the Tesla insider, like they have said since 2016.
Mobileye quit Tesla in 2016 (Hardware version 1) for a reason: ethics of integrity.
Shares in machine learning company Mobileye have fallen by 8% following the announcement it will be breaking ties with automotive innovator Tesla.
Mobileye is a major provider of ADAS (Advanced driver-assistance Systems) and supplies over 50 automakers (called OEMs which is short for original equipment manufacturers) worldwide. […] Mobileye sells over 30 million of these per year (for context about 90 million vehicles are sold annually). This equates to about 65-70% market share for vehicles equipped with ADAS.
Mobileye didn’t want to kill people. So they quit working with the deadly Tesla CEO, and somehow people didn’t get that memo… in 2016.
People will be killed by Tesla’s negligence.
NVidia likewise quit Tesla (Hardware version 2) for a reason: ethics of integrity. And NVidia, like Mobileye, became far more successful than Tesla.
This is very basic stuff for engineers who honor a code of ethics, but it obviously needs to be said more directly and clearly for Wall Street and Silicon Valley to predict better. Nobody who understands the engineering of robots on roads should allow the dangerous Tesla fiction to spread and continue to kill.
