We already know that Elon Musk tried to make Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) look better than they really are for years. He repeated Tesla would sell robotaxis more than once. The Tesla CEO also dictated a misleading text in an edited video claiming a car that crashed and was constantly corrected was driving itself, all because he believes his company would be "worth basically zero" without that capability. However, a story from Jonas Rest published by Manager Magazin shows how the European Union (EU) and political fears led Germany to mostly watch Tesla do as it pleased with its beta software.
Rest made an investigation that unearthed crucial information on how the German state dealt with the first confirmed death involving Autopilot in the US. Joshua Brown died on May 7, 2016, when his 2015 Tesla Model S 70D drove under a refrigerated semitrailer while traveling eastbound on US-27A west of Williston, Florida. Shortly after that, the Ministry of Transport commissioned an investigation into the system. The man in charge was Jürgen Bönninger, the managing director of FahrzeugSystemDaten GmbH until he retired in 2022. This company develops car inspection specifications in Germany. Ironically, the company's acronym is FSD – the same name of Tesla's latest attempt to deliver an autonomous vehicle.
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