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German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

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Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#131
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" I am not accusing you specifically of using weak language, but let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice. It's one that Elon Musk is directly responsible for and directly encouraged with misleading statements where he deliberately…

It's strange how much people will bend over backwards to give Musk the benefit of doubt when he openly lies about such things

Some of us have explained many times how his quotes get taken out of context and twisted into being “promises” and “lies” but the haters have the upper hand at the moment. Believe what you want to but at least look at his statements yourself, with care, and in context, and notice when he prefaces things with “I think” and “I believe” etc.

The bending over backwards is being done by the haters, not by his supporters. If anything his supporters are pretty quiet and just vote with their money.

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#132

I agree with this wholeheartedly, even as a Tesla owner. Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" while shifting everything above that to "Full Self-Driving". They should have called it "CoPilot" since that infers that you're still the driver in charge of controlling the vehicle and it would have had exactly the same reception…

Actually I think the name "Autopilot" is the least troublesome part of the marketing. Other car makers call their systems CoPilot, ProPilot, SuperCruise, whatever and I think the name matters less than the communication and details of using the system. The main Autopilot marketing page shows a video of a Tesla driving itself, says the Driver is there for legal purposes only, and provides no other disclaimers about th…

> The main Autopilot marketing page shows a video of a Tesla driving itself, says the Driver is there for legal purposes only

This alone feels like lawsuit-bait.

I'm surprised it took this long for the courts to get involved.

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, the dictionaries are in conspiracy with the general public, as they also define autopilot as "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement". The etymology of the word automatic is also very telling. Generally we ascribe meaning to words by how people use it, and I'm not sure I'd call marketers people.

> Apparently, the dictionaries are in conspiracy with the general public, as they also define autopilot as "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement". This is describing cruise control.

Cruise control just maintains speed, not direction. It'll happily plow you into an obstacle without human intervention.

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" I am not accusing you specifically of using weak language, but let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice. It's one that Elon Musk is directly responsible for and directly encouraged with misleading statements where he deliberately…

> It's a disgrace and one of many many many reasons why Tesla needs to outright fire Musk. I drove a co-worker's Tesla and I loved it--and I will never buy one for the reasons you mentioned. I'm glad Tesla exists to force other automakers to compete on the electric front, but that's the extent of my admiration for them.

I bought one in spite of Musk, simply put the technology of the car and that it brought back memories as a kid of all the cool concept cars that never got built sold me. That is performs so well it just a bonus. I feel like I am driving the future day in and day out.

However I think that only does Musk misrepresent what the technology is capable of and the timeline I think that many quality of life features are missing simply because if he does not want it no one wants it; my bugaboo has been the poor support for bluetooth music from phones. It was only recently that a Tesla owner could select what track within a play list to play; they still cannot select the playlist, artist, and more, which are features common in every day cars and for many years.

I have no plans on giving up my Tesla soon, I am looking forward to the Audi BEV TT so I can put convertible and EV together. That is 2023 at the earliest. At least Tesla is forcing the hands of other automakers

PS: I would go so far as to state I believe the 8k cost they apply to full self driving is to convince people it really does what he claims. As in, it can only be so expensive because it must work. That 8k is also why I won't consider a new Telsa, originally I figured a Y would be nice

PPS: I am sure besides myself many of us have posted here and elsewhere that the name "Autopilot" implied far too much. Glad some court stepped in and said stop it

PPPS: Kind of fun a German court upheld this, considering all the years their own auto industry was committing outright fraud

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, the dictionaries are in conspiracy with the general public, as they also define autopilot as "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement". The etymology of the word automatic is also very telling. Generally we ascribe meaning to words by how people use it, and I'm not sure I'd call marketers people.

> Apparently, the dictionaries are in conspiracy with the general public, as they also define autopilot as "a device that keeps aircraft, spacecraft, and ships moving in a particular direction without human involvement". This is describing cruise control.

No, that just keeps the car moving. Not in any particular direction.

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. My my, that is brazen!

It's also almost certainly true. Whether you think LIDAR-based systems are the way to go, there's no doubt that full self-driving based on cameras is possible given the right software. That's what humans are, after all, so it's "just" a matter of building the software to drive that hardware.

the "right software" is nowhere to be found though

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#137
post #63

Good. These statements are lies. The company should face punishment in the US for saying that full self-driving is blocked by “regulatory approval” when they’re still an unknown number of years away from even being able to demo something they plan to ship. They still don’t know if full self-driving is even possible at the required level of reliability with their current hardware suite. They could well be wrong and si…

When it gets there, regulatory approval will absolutely be a bottleneck to deployment. They don't say it is a current blocker. And it won't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class-leading. Even if Tesla can't reach level 5, it will be damn close and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human.

>When it gets there, regulatory approval will absolutely be a bottleneck to deployment. They don't say it is a current blocker.

Elon regularly states that the chief blocker for Tesla is regulatory approval. Meanwhile Teslas still drive straight into overturned trucks.

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#138

I am wondering if a regular person when is thinking about autopilot term in a car is thinking at movies and not at aircrafts. In SciFi/spy movies autopilot means the ship or car is piloting itself and you can do something else.

Sure, they probably do. But more problematic is what does an average person think when they read "Full Self-Driving Capability" and "Includes the Full Self Driving Computer"?

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're transposing airplane terminology with automobile terminology. In a car, the co-pilot is typically someone that sits in the passenger seat and functions only as an additional set of eyes. They can't take complete control over the vehicle from that spot. Cars, unlike airplanes, don't have two sets of full controls.

> You're transposing airplane terminology with automobile terminology. Well yeah... transposing terminology is how an analogy is supposed to work. And I didn't pick the analogies - Tesla did and then you proposed another flying analogy! > In a car, the co-pilot is typically someone that sits in the passenger seat and functions only as an additional set of eyes. Do you mean a co-driver ? Like in a rally car? I've neve…

This comment seems to pretty much ignore the lingua franca of American drivers. Transposing terminology only works to the extent that the public actually understands how an airplane autopilot functions, which they don't. Plenty of people refer to their front seat passenger as a co-pilot or navigator, but I've never heard anyone call their passenger "co-driver".

Re: German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use the wayback machine and look at their AutoPilot page, the very first thing you see is ... well, here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170201120106/https://www.tesla... They wanted people to believe that this had more capabilities than it really does.

> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. My my, that is brazen!

"have the hardware needed" ... being legalese/marketing speak for "the hardware may indeed be capable, but the software is not (yet)". So they're gearing people to expect the full self-driving capability, _eventually_. Shady to say the least.
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