YouTube has removed a video that shows Tesla drivers carrying out their own safety tests to determine whether the EV’s (electric vehicle) Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities would make it automatically stop for children walking across or standing in the road, as first reported by CNBC.
The video, titled “Does Tesla Full-Self Driving Beta really run over kids?” was originally posted on Whole Mars Catalog’s YouTube channel and involves Tesla owner and investor, Tad Park, testing Tesla’s FSD feature with his own kids. Park drives a Tesla Model 3, towards one of his children, then crosses the street with another child. Park’s vehicle stops both times before it reaches the children.
As outlined on its support page, YouTube has specific rules against content that “endangers the emotional and physical well-being of minors,” including “ dangerous stunts, dares, or pranks.” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi told The Verge that the video violated its policies against harmful and dangerous content, and that the platform “doesn’t allow content showing a minor participating in dangerous activities or encouraging minors to do dangerous activities.” Choi says YouTube decided to remove the video as a result.
“I’ve tried FSD beta before, and I’d trust my kids’ life with them,” Park says during the now-removed video. “So I’m very confident that it’s going to detect my kids, and I’m also in control of the wheel so I can brake at any time,” Park told CNBC that the car was never traveling more than eight miles an hour, and “made sure the car recognized the kid.”
The video had been viewed over 60,000 times on YouTube as of August 18th. The video was also posted on Twitter and is still available for viewing. The Verge reached out to Twitter to see if it has any plans to take it down but didn’t immediately hear back.
The crazy idea to test FSD with real — living and breathing — children After a video ad campaignTweets showed Tesla vehicles apparently failing to detect and colliding when confronted with child-sized dummies. Tesla fans weren’t buying it, sparking a debate about the limitations of the feature on Twitter. Omar Qazi is the Tesla investor who later launched Whole Mars Catalog, an EV-driven Twitter channel and YouTube channel. hinted at creating a videoIn an effort to prove the original results wrong, we have used real children.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in response to the video, issued a statement advising against the use of children to test automated driving technology. “No one should risk their life, or the life of anyone else, to test the performance of vehicle technology,” the agency told Bloomberg. “Consumers should never attempt to create their own test scenarios or use real people, and especially children, to test the performance of vehicle technology.”
Tesla’s FSD software doesn’t make a vehicle fully autonomous. It’s available to Tesla drivers for an additional $12,000 (or $199 / month subscription). Once Tesla determines that a driver meets a certain safety score, it unlocks access to the FSD beta, enabling drivers to input a destination and have the vehicle drive there using Autopilot, the vehicle’s advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). Drivers must keep their hands on the wheel, and be ready to take over at any moment.
The California DMV had earlier this month accused Tesla of making false claims regarding Autopilot and FSD. The agency alleges the names of both features, as well as Tesla’s description of them, wrongly imply that they enable vehicles to operate autonomously.
The NHTSA released data on driver-assist accidents in June. It found that Tesla vehicles with Autopilot vehicles were involved 273 crashes between July 20th, 2021 and May 21st 2022. The NHTSA is currently investigating several incidents in which Tesla vehicles using driver-assist technology collided and parked emergency vehicles. There have also been over 20 Tesla crashes, some of them fatal.
Update August 20, 2012, 02:10 ET Updated to add a statement from a YouTube spokesperson.
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