MaxPaul Franklin knew he needed to get to the emergency room. Fast.
At 79, he’s lived with diabetes for decades, and one fateful day last April he started to recognize the symptoms of low blood sugar and dehydration. He also knew it would take 30 minutes for an ambulance to reach his house on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina, and he’d likely get a hefty bill for the service.
So instead of relying on paramedics, Franklin hopped in his new Tesla SUV and turned on the car’s “full self-driving mode” for the trip to the Veterans Affairs hospital. When he returned home a few days later, he wrote a short post on his Facebook page praising the system.
“As an owner of luxury vehicles including Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Acura, and Cadillac, I can unequivocally declare Tesla the pinnacle of automotive innovation today,” the post said. “Its lifesaving capabilities in critical moments underscore its superiority.”
The story of his 13-mile drive turned Franklin into an internet sensation — in large part due to Tesla amplifying it on social media.
It also pulled Franklin into a struggle between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and federal safety officials over what’s likely to be a hot regulatory issue under the Trump administration.
The number of self-driving cars on U.S. roads is expected to grow in the coming years, and it will be up to President-elect Donald Trump and his team to decide how to balance safety concerns with a desire by carmakers to quickly deploy them.
At the center of this debate is Musk, who spent more than $200 million to help put Trump back in the White House. Musk now has an informal position as an adviser and as co-chair of the semi-official Department of Government Efficiency.
Even before Trump beat President Joe Biden, Musk said he wanted the federal government to speed up its approval of self-driving cars — and get rid of the current system that includes a variety of state regulations.
“If there’s a Department of Government Efficiency, I’ll try to help make that happen. For everyone, not just Tesla,” he said in late October during the company’s most recent earnings call. “It’s incredibly painful to do it state by state for 50 states. And I think we should have this national approval process for autonomy.”
In addition to accelerating policy changes, Musk’s spending on the Trump campaign also puts him in a position to head off investigations into Tesla and his other companies, according to government watchdogs. It’s a situation ripe for conflicts of interest that could influence how self-driving vehicles are evaluated for safety.
“It’s hard not to look at that as part of the reason for Musk going all-in in support of Trump,” said Rick Claypool, a researcher at the nonprofit Public Citizen.
Tesla’s not the only company betting on a self-driving system.
General Motors, Google’s parent company Alphabet and other corporate giants are pumping billions of dollars into developing the technology for automated cars. Another group of companies is working on developing automated trucks as well.
And like Tesla, General Motors is hyping its plans.
GM ran an ad during the Super Bowl showing the driver of a pickup truck clapping along to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” while its hands-free system controlled the truck.
But GM’s system, like Tesla’s, doesn’t meet the industry standard for fully automated driving, said David Kidd, a senior research scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The driver still has to pay attention and be ready to take control of the vehicle.
Tesla has been more aggressive than other carmakers, calling its system “autopilot,” “full self-driving” and “full self-driving (supervised)” despite the limitations.
“They market it as more capable than other products even though from a functional standpoint they are very similar,” Kidd said.
Tesla has promised for several years that it was close to rolling out a fully automated car but still hasn’t done it.
To date, its driver assistance systems are in a separate class from self-driving vehicles like Waymo, Cruise and Zoox, some of which are operating as ride-hailing services without a driver behind the wheel.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been collecting crash data on those vehicles, and on vehicles like Tesla that use advanced driver assistance systems.
But for now, states such as California are regulating most aspects of fully automated vehicles.
Push for national standard
Under current law, NHTSA allows companies to sell fully automated vehicles, but they have to comply with conventional vehicle standards, including having lights, brakes and steering wheels. However, the companies operating the cars face special licensing requirements in some states, notably California.
This fall, Tesla announced plans to build a fully automated “Cybercab,” but the system it currently sells on its vehicles doesn’t yet meet the industry standard for fully automated driving.
Tesla’s model for a Cybercab doesn’t include a steering wheel, and Musk has chafed at state regulations on autonomous cars. That may explain why he has pushed for a national standard on automated driving, because it could preempt state laws, said Mark MacCarthy, who teaches courses in technology policy at Georgetown University.
“If he’s trying to sell the cars nationally and he can’t sell cars in California, that’s an obstacle,” MacCarthy said.
NHTSA has ordered a series of recalls over the last few years of Tesla vehicles equipped with autopilot or full self-driving systems. In October, the agency started another investigation after four Tesla vehicles using FSD were involved in collisions, including one that led to a fatality in Arizona.
The investigators questioned whether FSD, which uses cameras and software to guide the car, can be impaired by glare, fog and airborne dust. NHTSA officials also questioned whether Tesla is overhyping FSD.
Tesla says in its owners manuals and other materials that the system can’t fully control a car and that drivers need to remain engaged when they use it. At the same time, the company promotes favorable stories on social media such as Franklin’s ride to the VA hospital.
“We believe that Tesla’s postings conflict with its stated messaging that the driver is to maintain continued control over the dynamic driving task,” Greg Magno, the chief of NHTSA’s vehicle defects division, said in a letter to the company this fall. “We similarly observe that these postings may encourage viewers to see FSD-Supervised as a Chauffeur or ‘Robotaxi’ rather than a partial automation/driver assist system that requires persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver.”
Along with Franklin’s story, NHTSA cited six other instances in April and May when Tesla reposted stories about its self-driving system.
Left unsaid in the NHTSA letter is that Tesla isn’t just a car company that uses social media. Musk also owns X, formerly known as Twitter, and has 200 million followers on the platform.
“If there is a degree to which he can exert his influence to shape the narratives around this, I think that’s something that [regulators] are certainly sensitive to,” said Claypool, the Public Citizen researcher.
Tesla and the Trump transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment. A NHTSA spokesperson said the agency can’t discuss the investigation but added in a statement: “NHTSA will continue to follow its investigative processes, in accordance with the Vehicle Safety Act and NHTSA’s data-driven, risk-based process.”
Franklin said NHTSA investigators have not asked to talk to him.
But shortly after he put his story on Facebook, Franklin said he was contacted by Tesla staffers who verified it and got his permission to repost it. The version on Tesla’s X account was viewed 1.6 million times, and the version on Musk’s personal account got millions more views.
Like many stories on social media, the details got distorted the more Franklin’s tale circulated. Flashy headlines started appearing, including one that said, “Tesla Model Y drives heart attack victim 20 km to hospital.” (Franklin was diagnosed with a mild heart attack in addition to the diabetes complications.)
Tesla fans applauded the feat. Detractors said Franklin endangered other drivers.
For his part, Franklin said he never lost consciousness and was able to supervise the car for the whole trip, and that he had asked his roommate to stand by in case he had to pull over and call for help. Most of the route was on a four-lane highway, and there was virtually no traffic because it was after midnight, he said.
Most importantly, he said, the car performed flawlessly. He stressed he’s no Tesla fanboy — he’s a Vietnam War veteran who runs his own business — but he thinks the car’s technology is the future of transportation.
“These eight high-definition cameras, looking in all directions all the time, drive me better than I could ever, ever, ever drive myself,” he said. “There is no comparison.”
