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Tesla Autopilot ‘easily tricked’ by Consumer Reports in bizarre test
Consumer Reports claims to have shown that Tesla Autopilot can be “easily tricked” into driving without anyone in the driver’s seat. The test process was extremely bizarre and required certain items that most drivers would never have in their vehicles.
CR released a report on April 22nd entitled, “CR Engineers Show a Tesla Will Drive With No One in the Driver’s Seat.” The test was in response to the recent and very public Tesla Model S crash in Texas, where two men, unfortunately, passed away after their all-electric sedan crashed violently into a tree at a high speed. Investigators are attempting to determine whether the vehicle was “driverless,” a claim made by several mainstream media outlets. CEO Elon Musk chimed in just days after the crash and the very public coverage of it to say that it would be impossible for Autopilot to function on the road where the crash occurred due to the lack of road lines, which are required to initiate the use of Basic Autopilot.
Tesla alleged “driverless” crash in Texas: What is known so far
The CR test required the vehicle, a Tesla Model Y, to be in motion, and engineers then engaged Autopilot and set the speed dial to 0, which brought the car to a stop. Next, Jake Fisher, CR’s Senior Director of Auto Testing, placed a “small, weighted chain on the steering wheel, to simulate the weight of a driver’s hand, and slid over into the front passenger seat without opening any of the vehicle’s doors, because that would disengage Autopilot.” The Autopilot speed was then adjusted so that the vehicle would accelerate from its stationary position. The car managed to drive up and down the half-mile lane of the CR test track, although nobody was in the seat or controlling the vehicle. “It was a bit frightening when we realized how easy it was to defeat the safeguards, which we proved were clearly insufficient,” Fisher said. The engineers encouraged nobody to try the experiment at home, but who will have a custom weighted chain sitting around to experiment with anyway?
“In our evaluation, the system not only failed to make sure the driver was paying attention, but it also couldn’t tell if there was a driver there at all,” Fisher added, but he wasn’t done throwing shade at Tesla. “Tesla is falling behind other automakers like GM and Ford that, on models with advanced driver assist systems, use technology to make sure the driver is looking at the road.” GM’s SuperCruise and Ford’s recently released BlueCruise are what Fisher is referencing, but the comparisons don’t really add up.
Tesla Autopilot has over 23 billion real-world miles of data that is stored in a Neural Network to improve performance. With every mile driven, Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving functionalities become more robust, more precise, and more adaptable to human behavior. Ford and GM have accumulated only a fraction of these statistics. Tesla, meanwhile, recently reported its Q1 2021 Safety Report, where it found that Autopilot is nearly 10 times safer than human driving.
Tesla’s Q1 2021 accident data shows Autopilot is closing in on being 10X safer than humans
The test performed by CR is extremely bizarre because people would not normally have all of these things in their vehicle or even in their possession, to begin with. Tesla maintains that drivers are responsible for remaining attentive during the entirety of their driving experience. The company has never claimed to have released a program capable of Level 5 autonomy where a driver needs to pay no attention to the road or the vehicle’s surroundings. Yet, Tesla’s very-publicized crash raises questions from those who have a historical distaste for the company and its products. Consumer Reports has not been keen on Tesla in the past. They have indicated that GM’s SuperCruise, despite being less effective or safe than Autopilot based on data, holds a commanding lead over Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving program.
It is worth noting that Tesla has several safety thresholds that would prohibit anyone from attempting to let the vehicle drive itself. These include a steering wheel monitoring system, which will bring the car to a complete stop if the driver is not holding it. The system also requires a driver to be in the seat to function, and the company recently revoked FSD software from several drivers who were abusing the program by being inattentive. More safety features, like a facial features recognition camera, will monitor the driver’s eyes and face to ensure they are paying attention to the road.
What are your thoughts on the CR study? Let us know in the comments, or let me know at @KlenderJoey on Twitter. You can email me at joey@teslarati.com as well.
News
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Tesla’s Cybercab drives itself off the Gigafactory Texas line in a striking new production video.
Tesla has provided a first look from inside a production Cybercab as it drove itself off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The video footage, posted on X, opens on the factory floor with robotic arms and assembly equipment visible through the Cybercab windshield, and follows the car through a branded tunnel marked “Cybercab”, before autonomously navigating itself to a holding lot.
The first Cybercab rolled off the Giga Texas production line on February 17, 2026, with Musk writing on X, “Congratulations to the Tesla team on making the first production Cybercab.” April marked the official shift to volume production. The Giga Texas line is being prepared to produce hundreds of units per week, with 60 units already spotted on the Gigafactory campus earlier this month.
Purpose-built for autonomy
Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas pic.twitter.com/Y9qG3KyWBa
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 23, 2026
The Cybercab was first revealed publicly at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October 2024 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, where 20 pre-production units gave attendees rides around the studio lot. Musk said he believed the average operating cost would be around $0.20 per mile, and that buyers would be able to purchase one for under $30,000. The two-seat design is deliberate. Musk noted that 90 percent of miles driven involve one or two people, making a compact two-passenger vehicle the most efficient configuration for a fleet-scale robotaxi. Eliminating rear seats also removes complexity and cost, supporting that sub-$30,000 target.
Tesla’s annual production goal is 2 million Cybercabs per year once several factories reach full design capacity. The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals, and relies entirely on Tesla’s vision-based FSD system. What the video shows is the first evidence of that system working not as a demo, but as a production reality, driving itself off the line and into the world.
🚗 Our first ride in Tesla Cybercab last October: pic.twitter.com/kGqIqgJPRn https://t.co/BITCXFhbVd
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2025
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Tesla pulls back the curtain on Cybercab mass production
Elon Musk’s last manually driven Tesla will do something no other production car will do
