German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by dlivingston » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

While the average non-Tesla owner might be confused on phrases like “autopilot”, any Tesla owner is very aware of its capabilities and shortcomings.

When you first purchase your Tesla and are beginning the setup process, you’re presented with multiple warning screens like this: https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autostee...

That’s an old image: I couldn’t find the current warning screen on Google Images, but it’s even more stark and serious about the driver’s role w.r.t. autopilot.

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

#142

Post by twic » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

billfor wrote: post #95

I wonder how many people complaining about Tesla's marketing actually have a Tesla. The car clearly makes you acknowledge that the driver is responsible before using any Autopilot/FSD capability, and if you bought the car with the expectation that it didn't , you have a return period to get your money back in full. It doesn't matter if they said it would take you to the moon and back. If you test drive or buy it and…

> It doesn't matter if they said it would take you to the moon and back. If you test drive or buy it and don't like it then just return it: no harm done.

Under German law it seems that it does, in fact, matter.

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

#143

Post by vvanders » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #105

typon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying people see Musk as a necessary "evil" to fight off a bigger evil (in the form of oil companies) and so they forgive his misgivings in a sort of utilitarian calculus?

No. I'm saying Tesla is successful because of Elon's hype. They are not "forgiving" his misgivings, they fully believe Elon will solve world hunger and invent FTL space travel. If you ask anyone who's bought into Tesla, they will tell you the "Auto Pilot on airplanes" lie, but they also believe Elon will deliver on Level 5 Autonomous driving. No cares about electric cars, they care about the guy's company who is usin…

Remove autopilot from a Model S and it's still a hell of a car. Just from a pure driving dynamics a mechanical engine can't touch a VFD in terms of power dynamics and range(which is also why Diesel-Electric locomotives use them).

Don't disagree on the autopilot, the killer app has always been for me stop-and-go traffic where the speeds are lower and the sensors need to do less vision and more radar based.

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

#144

Post by cool_dude85 » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

gibolt wrote: post #63

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #25

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.

This is an absolute abuse of language. Can I say that my backyard nuclear fusion reactors are held back by regulatory approval? Surely when I finally get around to building a working one, I will have to jump through those pesky hoops.

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

#145

Post by filoleg » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #26

bgorman wrote: post #12

I wonder how much BMW/Daimler/Volkswagen had to do with this. It is a common practice for technology companies to offer features that will only become available after a certain time period. It actually takes time and money to build these features. I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to d…

> I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision. What are you implying? That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision? That the judges were biased? Bribed? Vague statements like this are very unhelpful, because you can't argue against…

> That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision?

Probably that + the constituents. When a very large chunk of your constituents are employed by local car manufacturing companies, letting those companies fail and lose to a foreign competitor not only loses money for those companies, it also puts a threat of unemployment on your voting population.

Lobbying from local car companies + your voting population's employment dependent on success of those local car companies is a very strong combination.

EDIT: to clarify, I am aware that judges in Germany are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would support the ban just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.

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

#146

Post by monkeyfacebag » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

dlivingston wrote: post #141

While the average non-Tesla owner might be confused on phrases like “autopilot”, any Tesla owner is very aware of its capabilities and shortcomings. When you first purchase your Tesla and are beginning the setup process, you’re presented with multiple warning screens like this: https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autostee... That’s an old image: I couldn’t find the current warning screen on Google Ima…

Aren't the ads largely targeted to non-owners? Even if I agreed with your point, I just don't see how it's relevant.

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

#147

Post by ilikehurdles » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

aiisahik wrote: post #44

To all those who harp on Tesla's statements being false - you completely missed the point: full use of the Streisand Effect for free advertising.

If anything this clarifies to people who thought that teslas could self-drive that this is incorrect and that their ads are deceptive. Tesla is pretty well known now so it's not exactly a positive look. Someone who planned to buy a Tesla based on its marketing might now consider one of the other EVs on the horizon.

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

#148

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

billfor wrote: post #95

I wonder how many people complaining about Tesla's marketing actually have a Tesla. The car clearly makes you acknowledge that the driver is responsible before using any Autopilot/FSD capability, and if you bought the car with the expectation that it didn't , you have a return period to get your money back in full. It doesn't matter if they said it would take you to the moon and back. If you test drive or buy it and…

It does in Germany (as the ruling in question indicates). False advertising here is very much considered 'harm done' and no way to do business. Lying to the customer until she takes the product out of the box is in no way, shape or form how you operate in this country. (well I guess it was for wirecard which is embarassing enough)

I do not want to live somewhere where I have to order ten things, three are fake, three I have to sent back, another few break and the last thing works.

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

#149

Post by dlivingston » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

kabes wrote: post #76

Not a lot of companies can get away with selling $6000 packages on which they'll never be able to deliver.

The Full Self Driving package is actually quite good. With the exception of going “hands free”, this is an accurate video on the current state of FSD: https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo

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

#150

Post by rtkwe » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #9

frenchy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it should be called level 5 autonomy until Tesla is willing to take responsibility for any accidents it causes.

Not sure about that, but I'm sure it's not "full self driving capability". It has not been the case ever since they started advertising in 2016.

I mean looking at it it would be a good litmus test for how confident any automaker is in their tech, if the driver is still liable for crashes it implies the driver isn't fully out of the loop which is what I'd expect to be true if we're actually living up to the Autopilot name.