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German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving

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621–630 of 632 posts

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

#621

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…

Due to recent hype we decided to re-visit the state of Tesla. Our local Tesla seller told us a week ago (after our test drive) that FSD was awesome and that once the legislation in EU allowed it (bad guys in EU blocking the progress) and fullyfull-FSD was available, the price of the car would increase as much as 50% and that it was a great investment. Having some related tech knowledge we saw how utopian that still was and our test drive had convinced us self-driving was still at least 10 years away... It is false advertising and most younger tech enthusiasts may not see all the challenges involved in camera-based self-driving!

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

#622
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

Sorry but 3-lane highway with constant flow of cars is very different to some Europe 2-lane highways with aggressive drivers changing lanes frequently. Also when shooting ads, you can do 50 trips and select only couple of "successful" ones where the driver intervention was not necessary. But the final video then does not reflect the real-life average experience.

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

#623

Good. This kind of advertising is misleading and was not only posing a risk for individuals but also for the sector of autonomous driving as a whole. I always feared that one more Tesla autopilot death might cause the public to generally distrust any company working in the field.

Exactly! That's why I am glad EU is very cautious in approving self-driving solutions. Yes, we need full self-driving and it doesn't look like an impossible task to achieve eventually. But it has to be done step by step, ensuring it behaves consistent and that the current limitations are well-understood by drivers. Bad reputation of some self-driving implementations could cause damage to the whole self-driving industry which would be bad.

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

#624
post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, they're even rain-sensitive, giving bikers priority in rainy conditions.

Wow. If you don't mind me asking, where is this? I live in a city that is considered relatively bike-friendly, but the timing of the lights is maximally bad for bikers, requiring us to stop at every light.

Groningen, the Netherlands. Some other cities in the Netherlands do this too, but AFAIK it's not (yet) universal.

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

#625
post #620
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers are hard to trivially analyze, because there is no source that tracks "deaths caused by tesla cars" - NHTSA tracks deaths in cars and pedestrians, but e.g. not in other cars involved in the accident, even if potentially there car without the fatality was a contributing factor (fault is kind of irrelevant). But the numbers we do have make Tesla's look pretty dangerous. Tesla's overall fatality rate may be…

> autopilot isn't used on busy city streets As of a recent update a month or two back, it is now. It is ever improving as they roll out new features. Some of which are safety features. It’s a moving target. Whatever stats or safety records or flaws or concerns you think you know about today can be invalidated tomorrow. In fact we just got an update tonight. I can’t tell you what’s in it since I haven’t gone downstair…

Oh definitely. The flaws may well be fixed, and aren't huge anyhow. But they're real enough to consider Tesla's past claims to be super-duper safe to be misleadingly cherry-picked (effectively they were lying), so it's a little hard to take new claims at face value.

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

#627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think they're intentionally using that word for precisely that reason?

But there's no other commonly-used word for it!

"Sugar free" (oops, not true)

"No calories" (not true again)

There are a hundred ways to say that something won't cause you to gain weight. They chose the one that sounds like it means that even though it doesn't, because it also has a different meaning which is technically true.

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

#628
post #621

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…

Due to recent hype we decided to re-visit the state of Tesla. Our local Tesla seller told us a week ago (after our test drive) that FSD was awesome and that once the legislation in EU allowed it (bad guys in EU blocking the progress) and fullyfull-FSD was available, the price of the car would increase as much as 50% and that it was a great investment. Having some related tech knowledge we saw how utopian that still w…

FSD is very cool. But Musk also parrots the idea that Teslas are investments, which makes no sense to me. Why would my $50k Model Y be worth $75k in 10 years, when a brand-new Model Y in 10 years would also cost $50k (assuming prices stay constant)?

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

#629
post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> purported / alleged. The claims of this have been debunked. Isn't this entire article about how the courts in Germany determined that it is, in fact, false advertising?

That’s your interpretation of the article’s interpretation of the court’s interpretation I guess. Making all the foregoing my interpretation of your interpretation. Having read the Tesla website myself and understood its claims, they are not false. I believe the court was concerned that it was theoretically possible that some people might get confused. Or to put it in a harsh (to Tesla) way, the court feared some con…

> Having read the Tesla website myself and understood its claims, they are not false.

"The driver is only present for legal reasons".

Really? That's a direct quote from Tesla, a claim. I don't think it at all stands on itself.

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

#630
post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that, but saying "I think x will happen" is not the same as saying "I promise x will happen." Keep in mind the word "promise" is being used repeatedly and emphatically on forums like this one.

I didn't expect Musk's defenders to offer up a defense whose cornerstone is that his judgment is so poor and his knowledge so weak that it is foolish to trust even short-term predictions about his own products.

It’s not exactly how you’re reading it, but you could say bleeding edge is how he operates. When there is a 51% chance of success, he goes for it. We’re talking in the lab. For consumer products, the standards are different. A lot of his statements are about the lab versions.
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