A Five-Part Investigative Report

PART 1

Waymo's 'Fully Autonomous' Fleet Exposed As Little People Stuffed Inside Dashboard Compartments

Company clarifies employees are 'independent contractors,' not 'trapped'

SAN FRANCISCO—In a bombshell investigation that has sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, Waymo's fleet of supposedly self-driving vehicles has been revealed to be operated entirely by little people crammed into hidden compartments behind the dashboard, sources confirmed Wednesday.

"We noticed something was off when one of the cars sneezed," said San Francisco resident Maria Gutierrez, who first reported the discovery after hearing muffled coughing from her Waymo's glove box. "Then I heard a tiny voice say 'sorry' and I knew this wasn't machine learning."

The investigation revealed that each Waymo vehicle contains a 4'2" or shorter employee folded into a 3-cubic-foot space behind the airbag housing, operating the vehicle via a complex system of pulleys and a periscope.

Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana pushed back on characterizations that the company had misled investors.

"Our vehicles are still fully autonomous in the sense that the small person inside operates autonomously, without supervision," Mawakana said during an emergency press conference. "They make their own decisions. They choose when to brake. That's autonomy."

When asked how this differed from simply hiring short drivers, Mawakana responded, "The compartment. It's about the compartment."

Documents obtained by The Finer Print revealed that Waymo's hiring process specifically targeted little people, with job postings seeking candidates who are "flexible," "comfortable in confined spaces," and "unbothered by the sensation of being folded."

Employee reviews on Glassdoor painted a troubling picture, with one former "Autonomous Navigation Specialist" writing: "Pros: Job security. Cons: I haven't fully extended my legs since 2019."

Historians were quick to draw parallels to the famous 18th-century hoax known as the Mechanical Turk, an elaborate "chess-playing automaton" that was revealed to contain a human chess master hidden inside.

"This is literally just the Mechanical Turk again," said Dr. Eleanor Vance, a technology historian at MIT. "They didn't even try to innovate on the scam."

When informed of the historical comparison, Mawakana asked, "Is that a competitor? Are they hiring?"

At press time, Waymo had announced plans to IPO at a $200 billion valuation after investors confirmed they "honestly don't care as long as nobody else finds out."

PART 2

Zoox Demo Video Revealed To Have Edited Out Train Tracks Beneath Vehicle

'The vehicle chose to follow the tracks,' insists spokesperson. 'That's autonomy.'

FOSTER CITY, CA—Just days after the Waymo scandal rocked Silicon Valley, Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox is facing its own crisis after viral demo footage was revealed to have digitally removed the train tracks that the vehicle was riding on, sources confirmed Friday.

"If you look at frame 1,247, you can clearly see a rail spike," said video analyst Kevin Choi, who first spotted the discrepancy. "And at the 2:15 mark, the vehicle makes a turn that just happens to correspond exactly with San Francisco's old F-Line streetcar route."

The footage, which Zoox had presented to investors as proof of its "revolutionary bidirectional autonomous mobility platform," showed the company's cube-shaped vehicle gliding smoothly through San Francisco streets. A frame-by-frame analysis revealed extensive post-production work to erase visible tracks, overhead electrical wires, and at one point, an actual streetcar conductor waving.

Zoox spokesperson Jennifer Hartley defended the company's technology in a statement.

"Our vehicle is absolutely autonomous," Hartley said. "Yes, it travels on tracks. But no one is operating the train. The train operates itself. If that's not autonomous, what is?"

When pressed on whether the vehicle could deviate from the tracks, Hartley replied, "Why would it want to? The tracks go to great places."

Leaked internal documents revealed that Zoox engineers had repeatedly raised concerns about the approach, with one 2021 email reading: "Hey, just checking—are we still pretending this isn't a trolley? Because it's definitely a trolley."

The company's CEO responded in a follow-up email: "Please do not use the T-word. We are a mobility platform. The tracks are a 'guided navigation substrate.'"

Amazon, which acquired Zoox for $1.2 billion in 2020, issued a brief statement: "We are looking into these allegations and remain committed to eventually figuring out what we bought."

Local transit officials expressed frustration.

"They literally just put a fancy shell over a cable car and called it AI," said SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin. "We've been running the same technology since 1873. Where's our billion-dollar valuation?"

At press time, Zoox had announced a pivot to "autonomous maritime vessels" that sources confirmed are just ferries.

PART 3

Cruise 'Self-Driving' Car Revealed To Be Towed By Second Car With Very Long Rope

GM defends 'distributed autonomy architecture'

SAN FRANCISCO—The autonomous vehicle industry was rocked by yet another scandal this week as General Motors' Cruise division was exposed for operating vehicles that were simply being towed by a second car driving 200 feet ahead with a nearly invisible rope, sources confirmed Monday.

"I kept wondering why there was always another Cruise vehicle in front of me," said passenger Dana Morrison, who grew suspicious during her 15th ride. "Then we went over a hill and I saw the rope go taut. The driver in the front car made eye contact with me through his rearview mirror. We both knew."

The investigation revealed that Cruise has been operating a "lead car" system since 2022, with each supposedly autonomous vehicle connected to a human-driven car ahead via military-grade transparent polymer cable.

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt defended the technology in a company blog post titled "Autonomy Is A Spectrum."

"What is driving, really?" Vogt wrote. "If you think about it, the rear vehicle is making thousands of autonomous decisions every second. It's deciding to follow the rope. It's deciding not to snap the rope. These are choices."

Engineers familiar with the system described an elaborate operation.

"We have 400 lead drivers working in shifts," said one anonymous source. "The hard part is keeping the rope from getting tangled at intersections. We lost a whole city block in the Marina District last March. Just a huge knot of Cruise vehicles. We had to tell investors it was a 'clustering feature.'"

Documents show that Cruise experimented with various rope lengths before settling on 200 feet as "the minimum distance at which passengers stop asking questions."

GM issued a statement expressing continued confidence in its autonomous division: "Cruise remains an industry leader in whatever it is they're doing over there. We stopped asking."

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department would investigate, adding, "I genuinely don't know if this is illegal. I don't think anyone wrote a law about this. Why would they?"

At press time, Cruise had announced the rope technology would be "phased out" and replaced with "an even longer rope that's harder to see."

PART 4

Tesla Autopilot Source Code Revealed To Be Single Line: 'if crash_imminent: blame_driver()'

Musk: 'The code is elegant. People don't understand elegance.'

AUSTIN, TX—In the most damning revelation yet in the ongoing autonomous vehicle scandal, leaked Tesla source code revealed that the company's much-touted Autopilot system consists almost entirely of a single line of code designed to assign fault to the human driver, sources confirmed Wednesday.

The leak, published by a former Tesla engineer on GitHub before being hastily taken down, showed the complete Autopilot codebase:

# Tesla Autopilot v11.4.7
# Copyright 2024 Tesla, Inc.
# CONFIDENTIAL

import car

while True:
    if car.crash_imminent():
        car.blame_driver()
    else:
        car.drive_toward_nearest_obstacle()
        # TODO: fix this later

"I always wondered why Autopilot seemed to accelerate toward concrete barriers," said software analyst Robin Torres, who reviewed the code. "Turns out it's not a bug. It's line 11."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the leak in a series of posts on X.

"The code is elegant. People don't understand elegance," Musk wrote at 2:47 AM. "Also that's not our real code. Our real code is much more advanced. It has two lines."

Musk later added: "The 'blame_driver' function is extremely sophisticated. It factors in 47 different variables to determine the most legally defensible way to say it wasn't our fault."

The revelation has cast new light on Tesla's legal strategy in over 200 pending lawsuits related to Autopilot crashes.

"In every single case, Tesla's defense has been that the driver wasn't paying attention," said automotive safety attorney Patricia Mendez. "Now we know that's not a legal strategy. It's literally the product."

Current and former Tesla employees described a work environment where questioning the Autopilot system was discouraged.

"I once suggested we add a second line of code," said one engineer who requested anonymity. "Something like 'try not to crash.' I was fired within the hour. Elon personally called me to say I didn't understand elegance."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it would open an investigation, marking the 47th federal investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system.

"We've investigated Tesla 46 times and found nothing actionable," said NHTSA Administrator Sophie Shulman. "But this time we have the code. It literally says 'blame driver' in the function name. Even we can't ignore that. Probably."

At press time, Tesla stock had risen 12% on news that the company's legal defense budget could be "significantly reduced."

PART 5

Apple Cancels Car Project After Realizing It Was Just A Guy Named Carl Who Gives Rides

'We wish Carl well in his future endeavors,' says Tim Cook

CUPERTINO, CA—Apple Inc. announced Tuesday that it has officially terminated its decade-long autonomous vehicle project after an internal audit revealed that the entire initiative consisted of a single employee named Carl who had been giving coworkers rides in his 2007 Honda Civic, sources confirmed.

"We invested eleven years and approximately $10 billion into Project Titan," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a prepared statement. "It has come to our attention that all of that money went to Carl. We're not entirely sure how this happened."

The audit, triggered by the recent industry-wide scandals, found that Apple's "autonomous vehicle division" operated out of Carl's Civic, which he had parked in a handicapped spot in the Apple Park garage since 2014.

"Carl told us he was developing 'an integrated mobility experience,'" said one senior Apple executive, who requested anonymity. "In retrospect, that was just Carl's way of saying he'd drive you to lunch if you gave him gas money."

Documents revealed that Carl, whose last name could not be confirmed because "he just goes by Carl," had been submitting quarterly reports consisting entirely of his Civic's odometer readings and Yelp reviews of restaurants he'd driven coworkers to.

"Q3 was huge for us," read one 2021 report obtained by The Onion. "Drove to that new ramen place. Four stars. Autonomous capabilities continue to advance." The report was approved by seven layers of management.

Former employees recalled interactions with the project.

"I needed a ride to the airport once, and someone said 'use the Apple Car,'" said ex-Apple designer Tanya Chen. "Carl showed up in his Civic. There was a bobblehead on the dashboard. I assumed it was a sensor. It was just a bobblehead."

When asked whether the $10 billion investment could be justified, Cook pointed to Carl's "exceptional safety record."

"In eleven years of operation, Carl had zero fatal accidents," Cook said. "That's more than we can say for some of our competitors. Also, Carl always had mints. The other car companies don't have mints."

Carl could not be reached for comment, though colleagues reported he was "probably at Chipotle."

At press time, Apple had announced a new "Apple Rides" service that company insiders confirmed is "just Carl again, but with a subscription model."

This has been a five-part investigative series by The Finer Print's Autonomous Vehicles Desk. Tomorrow: "Bird Scooters Exposed As Regular Scooters That Someone Left Outside"