With the advent of self-driving technology, it would make sense to bring her expertise to NHTSA as the regulator navigates the evolving autonomous driving space. But not everyone agrees with her appointment.
Tesla Twitter, which is how some refer to Tesla superfans who dominate discussion about the company on Twitter, has launched an effort to cancel her appointment.
The group feels that Tesla is threatened by Cummings’ appointment because they see her as “anti-Tesla.”
Going by “Autopilot users for progress,” they wrote in a petition on Change.org:
We’re concerned by conflicts presented by Dr. Cummings’ role on the Board of Directors of Veoneer (a Swedish LIDAR company), her membership and association with “TSLAQ” (an online anti-Tesla short-selling & hate group), and public statements that suggest a bias toward and singling out of Tesla over technologies that have now become standard across the auto industry. At times, Dr. Cummings has made public statements that seem to reflect an emotional bias against Tesla, even insinuating that she would have to be “held back” from punching Tesla CEO Elon Musk if she met him. We expect impartiality from our regulators, or at least the appearance of it – not this. If Dr. Cummings needs to punch someone at Tesla, we just ask that the millions of Americans depending on vehicle automation not become collateral damage.
More than 5,000 people have signed the petition at the time of writing, and even Elon Musk commented, claiming that Cummings is “extremely biased against Tesla.”
Cummings responded:
