Not so. The Tesla safety operators appear to always have their thumb on the “Open Door” button of their door, which is sort of weird to see. It’s like every safety operator is getting ready to say the Irish goodbye to their passengers at any given moment.
Turns out, Full Self Driving disengages if you open the door. So that is probably being used as a janky, factory-standard kill switch for the autonomous driving system that causes the vehicle to come to controlled stop.
There is absolutely nothing stopping the human employee from sitting behind the wheel except optics...
Like, if there's three passengers, does the employee keep shotgun?
Does a passenger get the driver's seat? Or do they all have to sit in the backseat so people can see it's driving itself?
Is the plan for highspeed situations really just opening a fucking door at speed?
The level of stupidity is, as always, fascinating...
Nothing instills investors with confidence more than a nervous employee with a death grip on the door ~~handle~~ button.