If there is a “Mr. Tesla” today, it is clearly Elon Musk. But at one point, the moniker went to Martin Eberhard, who founded the electric vehicle maker in 2003. Eberhard led Tesla Motors as CEO before Musk ousted him in 2007.
Eberhard isn’t a big believer in autonomous driving—and he worries about Musk’s focus. In an interview published by Insider today, he suggested it could be dangerous.
On Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that Tesla will recall more than 360,000 vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software due to the risk of accidents. (Music take issue with it the word “recall” is because the necessary repairs will be done through an over-the-air software update rather than at a service center.)
Eberhard noted of Tesla’s early days, “all this autonomous FSD, autopilot nonsense—none of it existed when I was there. We were still busy trying to build cars and we never thought about it. That came later. It required a bigger budget than we have.
Musk has priorities. Last summer, in an interview with the YouTube channel “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley,” he said that getting self-driving technology is “the difference between a Tesla that costs a lot or costs zero.”
Musk says the FSD mode is key to making Teslas attractive enough for automakers to challenge established automakers.
Eberhard had a different thought. “In my opinion, we need to get out of the habit of thinking about all this autonomous stuff as connected to EVs,” Insider said. He said he appreciates “safety-oriented systems” like the driver assistance features that now come with Teslas.
It’s autonomous driving that bothers him. The FSD feature requires drivers to monitor it, but it allows Teslas to park automatically, enter highways, change lanes, and stop at traffic lights.
“I think the technology is too immature to put on the road,” Eberhard said. “I mean, it’s my cautious nature, but I’m going to have a hard time releasing buggy software on the road.”
Eberhard was not alone. Last weekend, tech CEO Dan O’Dowd spent nearly $600,000 on a Super Bowl ad reminding America of Tesla’s FSD feature. They tweeted“I try to remove the worst, least designed, developed, and tested automotive products on the market.”
Tesla threatened O’Dowd and the Dawn Project group with legal action last August after releasing a viral video showing Tesla in FSD mode hitting a child-sized mannequin. In a cease and desist letter to O’Dowd, Tesla called the Project Dawn tests “seriously deceptive and likely fraudulent.”
Tesla has faced lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny over its autonomous driving features. And last month, reports emerged that a 2016 video demo of Tesla’s FSD mode had, according to the testimony of the company’s engineers, been staged.
fortune reached Tesla but did not receive an immediate response.
Eberhard says that, in his mind, thinking of cars as software platforms is a mistake.
“I have an iPhone, and every time I update the software there are bugs in there,” Insider said. “This bug means that, for example, sometimes my news feed application crashes. It’s not a big problem, because it’s just a nuisance on the iPhone. But the bug appears in the software that controls, for example, the brakes or the steering wheel, it can kill you.
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