Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Elon Musk’s Crash Course’ On FX / Hulu, A ‘New York Times Presents’ Doc About Tesla’s Issues With Its Autopilot Technology

Elon Musk’s Crash Course is the first entry in the new season of The New York Times Presents, a series of documentaries produced by the Grey Lady based on the reporting done by Times staffers. The doc, directed by Emma Schwartz, takes a look at the Autopilot technology that is installed in Tesla’s vehicles, and how CEO Elon Musk’s consistent promises of a self-driving car haven’t come close to fruition, with deadly results.

ELON MUSK’S CRASH COURSE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Through archival footage, including footage of Musk talking at various panels and industry events, and interviews with Times reporters, former Tesla executives and engineers on the Autopilot program, and some of the software’s beta testers, Schwartz paints a picture of a technology that’s always been promising, but has yet to live up the overblown expectations Musk has put on it.

To put things into context, Musk’s career is examined, as well as the circumstances over which he took control of Tesla, even while he was trying to build SpaceX. It also discusses how he insisted that the Autopilot system for Tesla’s electric cars avoid the use of LiDAR, which other car makers and companies like Google were using to develop their own autonomous vehicles. We see video of Musk at various events alternately hyping up Autopilot by saying that the system would allow fully autonomous driving “in two years” and then saying to reporters that it’s merely a driver assist program, and drivers should never take their hands off the wheel.

Friends of Josh Brown, the first person to be killed in a Tesla using Autopilot, are interviewed, and they show that the former naval officer was not averse to risk; reps from the NTSB, who investigated the accident, are also interviewed. There’s a lot of back and forth between whether drivers are improperly using Autopilot, whether complacency contributed to Brown’s and other’s fatal accidents, or if the technology just isn’t ready for prime time yet.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hm… a story about a Silicon Valley exec promising the world and then backing away when the reality isn’t what they promised? Sounds like both the scripted (The Dropout) and unscripted (The Inventor) stories about Elizabeth Holmes. In fact, the whole Theranos scandal is mentioned by one of the engineers during this documentary.

Performance Worth Watching: Raven Jiang, one of the Autopilot software engineers, stands out among the engineers who were interviewed for the documentary because he really expresses regret for participating in the program and buying into Musk’s blowhard proclamations about it.

Memorable Dialogue: At the end of the film, there’s a YouTube video of two people in a Tesla talking about the latest software upgrade. “You can make thousands of people drive safer, just with a software update,” says the passenger — right before the self-driving car almost hits a bicyclist. “Are we going to have to cut that?” says the driver.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: With Musk constantly in the news, especially right now as he attempts to buy Twitter, any documentary that hoists him up on his own petard feels like it’s well-timed. But what Elon Musk’s Crash Course does well is actually use Musk’s words against him, with example after example of Musk hyping up the Autopilot feature of his Teslas before it was ever close to be doing what he said it would shortly be capable of.

With the first 20 or so minutes of the documentary focusing on Musk’s meteoric rise, plus an interview with former Tesla president Jon McNeill, Schwartz makes an effort to show that Musk didn’t get to where he is now by just being a blowhard and BS artist. He has real technological chops, and like all Silicon Valley visionaries, has the ability to get people to follow him as he undertakes seemingly impossible projects. And, in all honesty, he does achieve most of what he sets out to do.

The unfortunately-named Autopilot may end up being one of those projects. But when it was rolled out in 2015-16 it wasn’t ready yet, and it’s still not ready to be anything more than an advance driver assist system. And Musk’s mixed messages about it haven’t helped. Tesla and Musk loyalists took him at his word that autonomous driving was “two years away”, leading to complacency and misuse. Whether that factor contributed to Josh Brown’s death was undetermined, but the NTSB certainly made recommendations to at least reduce the complacency factor.

What Schwartz does so well is cull example after example of Musk giving that “two years away” statement, whether it’s in 2016, 2018, 2020 or 2021. Taken together, it makes him sound like a Holmes-level flimflammer. We know he’s not that, but it again points out that even the most successful Silicon Valley executive just has too much ego to not have a little bit of a flimflammer within him or her. The fact that Tesla is plowing forward with Autopilot — now just relying on cameras and removing radar — and not taking the NTSB’s recommendations on how to make it safer is what’s the most troubling aspect of the whole documentary.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Elon Musk’s Crash Course is yet another example of how The New York Times Presents concisely presents complicated news stories in a fast-moving, compelling package that gives viewers more than enough depth to understand the issue and who the players are.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.