Earlier this week, a video of a Tesla Model 3 on Autopilot going down the highway at night with nobody in the driver’s seat went viral, which not only put the passengers in the Tesla and everyone in the cars around it in danger, but also now poses a much greater risk. YouTuber Alex Choi—who you may remember from that time he made it on Jalopnik for building a “roll cage” on the outside of his Lamborghini Huracan, or for that other time he nearly crashed into a motorcyclist while driving like an idiot—is back in the news for recording his Model 3 on Autopilot after he jumped out of the driver’s seat and into the back seat. It’s a deranged move as Tesla’s Autopilot system, as is currently available to customers, is nowhere near being full self-driving capable, and is really just more of an advanced cruise control system. On this week’s Car Time, Gizmodo and Earther social media editor and resident mammal expert Emily Lipstein takes over for regular host Aaron Brown, who is out on assignment driving very strange Japanese cars this week, to talk about why a video like Choi’s only gets more dangerous when vast amounts of people watch it. We also introduce a new game show segment this episode called Cars and Craniums, putting Emily’s background as a mammal skull expert to the test as she has to guess which mammal skull matches which animal-named car. Check out this week’s Car Time and let us know what you’d like to see us do next. Or don’t. We’ll just do whatever anyway.
