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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

#221

Post by jacquesm »

brabel wrote: post #211
dave5104 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk isn't an idiot, he's overseen some great things at the companies he runs, and I hope the companies he's running continue pushing technology forward. But Musk as a human isn't so great. He'd do better to keep his mouth shut sometimes, and lay off Twitter every now and again. Between falsely accusing people of being pedophiles, claiming to take Tesla private in a tweet, and various other "incidents", he's kind of…

He's an idiot in the sense that Trump is an idiot. Made billions (sure, not started from scratch, but they still made billions more than you and me), says stupid things all the time but they still can get away with it and win (the presidency, the most valued car company in the word, whatever it is they want).

Trump started out with 100's of millions. Musk started off significantly lower on the ladder.

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

#222

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #129
_lmm8 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its nice to make semantic distinctions, but thats not how most of the population (people buying the car) think of it.

It's the same thing as putting "fat free" on the Twizzlers. It's technically true which means they can get away with it. Except that that probably kills more people than "autopilot" ever will.

It's not food companies' fault that the English word “fat” has multiple meanings and is the normal word for several of them.

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

#223

Post by fluffything »

dlivingston wrote: post #152
monkeyfacebag wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m actually confused by the phrase “ads”, because my understanding is that Tesla has an advertising budget of $0. I assume they’re referring to marketing materials (pamphlets, websites, etc).

The law is against fraudulent advertisement.

The channel used to perform the advertisement and how expensive that channel is are completely irrelevant.

For example, if Tesla claims in their website that their cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertising and illegal in Germany. If Tesla organizes a concert in some city somewhere, and the singer states that Tesla's cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertisement.

If Tesla distributes stickers to their car owners that claim that Tesla's can drive themselves, and their car owners stick them in public bathrooms where people can see them, that is, as well, illegal advertisement, even if Tesla did not stick those stickers themselves.

The law basically requires all companies selling products in Germany to be honest about what their products can and cannot do. This is good for consumers, and good for companies doing business there, because everybody is forced to play by the same rules.

The definition of being honest and what communication means etc. are all super loose, so most companies don't risk lying about their products. There are dozens of consumer protection organizations that'll sue a company for you due to false advertisement. The main consequences for the sued company are usually damages if there are any, and mainly the fines designed to discourage false advertisement. Most of the money ends up on the tax payers accounts, so consumers are really encouraged to report these times of crimes.

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

#224

Post by empath75 »

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 sounds like you don't believe in the concept of false advertising at all. Telling the truth after you buy the thing doesn't absolve you of the initial fraud. To my mind it exacerbates it, because it demonstrates that you know that your advertising is fraudulent.

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

#226

Post by WA »

dkonofalski wrote: post #57
ojnabieoot wrote: post #21

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…

I don't think it's dangerous, necessarily, unless you ignore people's personal responsibility in the situation as well. As currently designed, "Autopilot" requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel, provide rotational counter-weight on it, and you have to agree to safety and attention disclaimers before you can even enable the features. Yes, there are absolutely misconceptions that may happen with the gene…

Tesla’s own website mentions Autopilot and full self-driving capabilities on the same page. Just go and configure a car and see if anyone could ever misunderstand Autopilot in that context.

Add a bunch of cool YouTube videos of people presumably sleeping on the wheel.

Add a CEO who claims "car can run nightly errands soon" and "level 5 very soon" (by redefining level 5) and you easily have the currenct perception.

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

#227

Post by Taek »

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…

> they fully believe Elon will solve world hunger and invent FTL space travel

Well, maybe not fully believe, but certainly believe that Elon will move the needle materially in the right direction. I'd much rather spend my money on a product that supports a billionaire who is determined to save the world (Elon) than I would spend my money on a product that supports a billionaire who seems determined to take it over at any cost (Page, Brin, etc)

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

#228

Post by birdyrooster »

Shivetya wrote: post #134
some-guy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 missi…

People using their childhood dreams as an excuse to be functional sociopaths doesn't cut it.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/30/20891314/elon-musk-... https://www.elonmusk.today

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

#229

Post by birdyrooster »

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.

Oh oh I get it, so once the cart is delivered they can go about looking for a horse to drive it.

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

#230

Post by Silhouette »

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.

And it won't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class-leading.

Class-leading in what sense(s)?

Even if Tesla can't reach level 5, it will be damn close

But that's the problem with self-driving cars. Damn close isn't good enough. A miss is as good as a mile.

The problem with the self-driving/automation scale is that anything around levels 2-4 probably shouldn't be allowed on public roads, at least not yet.

Basic driver aids, where the driver is always fully engaged but the system can help to avoid mistakes, are proven to improve safety. This is what you get at level 1, and such technologies are already widespread in the industry.

If we can ever make a fully autonomous vehicle that can genuinely cope with any driving conditions, so you don't need any driver or controls in the vehicle any more, then obviously this has the potential to beat human drivers. This is level 5. But we don't know how to do this yet, and I have seen absolutely no evidence so far that anyone will know how to do it any time soon either.

In between, we have several variations where a human driver is required for some of the monitoring and control of the vehicle but not all. This has some horrible safety implications, particularly around the transitions between human- and vehicle-controlled modes of operation, and around creating a false sense of security for the human driver. The legal small print will probably say that they must remain fully alert and able to take over immediately at any time, but whether it is within human capability to actually do that effectively is an entirely different question.

and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human.

I've been driving for more than 25 years, and racked up hundreds of thousands of miles behind the wheel. I've never caused an accident, as far as I'm aware. I've never had a ticket. I try to be courteous to my fellow road users and give a comfortable ride to any passengers I have with me. What, in your opinion, would driving 10-100x safer than mine look like?

Humans certainly aren't perfect drivers and we have plenty of variation in ability. Things can go wrong, and I'm sure we'd all be happy to see fewer tragedies on our roads. But given the vast amounts of travel we undertake and how many of us do drive, autonomous vehicles will need an extremely good record -- far better than they have so far -- to justify the sort of claim you're making here.

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