On May 6th, according to media reports, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, fiercely criticized Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an interview, accusing him of failing to fulfill his promises about autonomous driving. Musk had previously promised that autonomous driving cars were about to hit the market.
During the interview, he also pointed out that Musk has been accused of exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla’s driving assistance system for years.
In October 2016, Musk claimed for the first time in a demo video (now removed) that Tesla’s new cars “have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.” He also said he hoped by 2017, a car could drive from Los Angeles to New York City without the driver touching anything, including the charger.
However, a few months ago, a Tesla engineering director claimed that part of the demo video was faked and that the video was created to generate hype.
During the morning show on Tuesday local time, Wozniak was asked about Musk, whom he generally admires but criticized for a certain technology.
“I believed in all those things Musk said. By the end of 2016, a self-driving car would travel across America. I had to buy one of those models. You know, for $50,000, it doesn’t do anything. I can tell you, it will never drive across America,” he said.
“I really believed in those things, but it was so far off from reality. If you want to study AI and do a lot of claiming, someone tries to kill you every chance they get, buy a Tesla,” he added.
In fact, Tesla cars have been involved in several widely reported fatal accidents. In February of this year, media reported that 19 people died in crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot system.
