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

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

#451

Post by propogandist » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:33 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #324

itsoktocry wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the demand over Teslas meant they almost did not feel any demand impact because of Covid, while Toyota saw a 30% demand drop. Tesla doesn't even define what a "delivery" is (remember factory-gated?), nor do I believe any numbers that come out of China, so I'm skeptical that they weren't affected by Covid-19. Personally, I think they "delivered" a number to ensure the stock analysts are appeased. If demand…

I believe tesla's numbers. When you have a backlog of sales a few cancled orders just changes the queue. Toyota didn't have that. Tesla also had customers in industry least affected (engineers and other upper class) who didn't need to adjust their life as much as waiters did.

Toyota (and subsidiaries like Lexus) serve a wide array of customers and demographics. Even with decreasing sales, they should drive net income that will match net revenues for Tesla this year.

You can also drive Toyota's cars through puddles, whereas Tesla's may encounter issues that are "acts of God", which are not covered by warranty:

https://insideevs.com/news/433643/video-tesla-model-3-rear-b...

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

#452

Post by natch » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

stetrain wrote: post #54

dkonofalski wrote: post #3

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…

>no other disclaimers about the limitations

No other disclaimers? Are we reading the same page you linked?

The title of the page clearly says “Future of Driving”

“Autopilot today and full self-driving capabilities in the future...“

The page then goes on to define what Autopilot is and concludes with this:

“Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”

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

#453

Post by natch » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #132

stetrain wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Feels like, yes, if you go by what the commenter you are replying to said. But read the page for yourself before deciding. It is not as the commenter described.

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

#454

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:38 AM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #418

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…

Which statements? This is what they say when you select the full self driving option when ordering a car: >The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may tak…

We need to break this down and examine it part by part and in whole as it’s extremely ambiguous to me what this is saying.

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

#455

Post by Zanni » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:41 AM UTC

obmelvin wrote: post #448

lazyjones wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Besides the Model 3's crazy acceleration, and automatic lane changing, I think the Accord matches or exceeds a Model 3 in every single way Except noise, pollution, complexity/maintenance cost, OTA updates, large touchscreen navigation that gets updated continuously, having to visit gas stations etc. etc. ICE is just obsolete technology. Half the performance at 10 times the noise and infinitely more pollution.

> large touchscreen navigation that gets updated continuously Specifically with the model 3 I think the central touchscreen is awfully placed and dangerous as the driver

I've got a Model 3 and a Model S. It took me about a week to get used to the central placement of the sole Model 3 screen and lack of a dashboard, but now I prefer it. The dashboard is always in my eye line yet frustrating blocked by the steering wheel. The Model 3 screen is off to the side where I can ignore it (most of the time), yet the information I need is close at hand when I want it. My impression is that it was initially a cost-saving measure, but I think it's a huge improvement over the Model S.

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

#456

Post by ojnabieoot » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #395

ojnabieoot wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look I really don't have a dog in the $TSLA or Tesla fight - I have no investments in the stock market and due to a disability I cannot drive a car. My grievance is with celebrity CEO worship, and in giving CEO credit for labor's accomplishments (which is particularly egregious in the case of SpaceX). Being an idiot conman and being a technical genius are not mutually exclusive. And clearly being an idiot conman and…

> I know I am being mean to Elon by calling him an idiot [...] But facts are facts. You are not being mean, just silly. Elon clearly isn't an "idiot" however you stretch the meaning of the word, he's a highly capable and successful man and has demonstrated repeatedly his skill, both in engineering and entrepreneurship. And your opinion isn't a fact.

I am copying another comment of mine to address this. The point is that I am calling Musk an idiot because he has a long history of being an idiot. The comment was more addressing him also being an obvious con artist, but I think his idiocy shines through.

~~~

[...]I am not denying that he is talented and he probably has a > 105 IQ.

The Autopilot controversy is just a straight con job, and a very stupid one. The BS about the $420 stock price was a horrendously stupid con job. His disinformation mongering about coronavirus - when he is smart enough to know the truth - is also a con job, both for his fans and his workers. Deliberately under-counting workers injuries at Tesla plants is conning safety regulators - it's not as dumb as Elon's other cons, but it's a con. Removing safety markers because Elon doesn't like them aesthetically is maybe not a con job but it is remarkably idiotic. The PR-motivated stuff about Musk engineering a solution to those kids trapped in Thailand - straight-up con job, and one that blew up in his face due to his idiotic and narcissitic use of Twitter. Hyperloop (remember that?) was always a con job, and one that was so transparently stupid that nobody but Musk could have gotten away with it.

I could go on. The point is that I am calling Musk an "idiot conman" because of

a) his well-documented affinity for conning his customers, fans, investors, and government agencies

b) his well-documented acts of being a huge idiot, including in his planning and execution of most of the above con jobs

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

#457

Post by Smoosh » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:45 AM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #370

bluGill wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car companies have always been build engines and assembly of body organizations, buying other parts from whoever. Each is a bit different but nothing new about not owning all the technology. If it isn't a competitive advantage why bother?

I appreciate your comment on competitive advantage. What would it be in Tesla's case? It's not really the car design or assembly. I know they tried to play "disrupt" games with throwing software at the production line but I understand it didn't go well. Couple things that come to mind: 1) SV software culture, kinda coming from Musk. This helps with battery pack management (important), electric motor control (importan…

> It's not really the car design

I think it partly is the car design. They were the first manufacturer trying to make a mainstream car which was designed from the ground up to take advantage of being a BEV (for example with batteries flat under the floor). Others always based their electric car upon an existing ICE design despite the ensuing compromises.

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

#458

Post by lsh123 » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:45 AM UTC

stetrain wrote: post #54

dkonofalski wrote: post #3

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…

Audi calls it adaptive cruise control which I find correctly describes what it does.

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

#459

Post by Alupis » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #433

Alupis wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the narrative was a $1 million dollar loan from his father? Do you have a source for "100's of millions"? Sure, a $1 million dollar loan from family is pretty generous, and an amazing starting place - certainly not a "from nothing" tale. However, it's not outlandish money for a business loan to a top-rated business school graduate with extensive industry experience either. I'd also wager if you gave most pe…

> I thought the narrative was a $1 million dollar loan from his father? A few thoughts: there are other sources that say there were significant other inputs, up to and including someone going to a Trump casino and buying $3.5M in chips and not playing. And there's the inflation value - a $1M loan in the 1960s is a lot more than $1M now. > business loan to a top-rated business school graduate Numerous people (includin…

> Quite possibly true. But in Trump's case he could have done absolutely nothing with the money he inherited and relied on earned interest and be richer than he is now.

Also a myth that's been busted numerous times. You don't live an extravagant life, gold plated everything, private jets, numerous high-rise towers, restaurants, golf courses, hotels and more without spending a single penny - which is the premise of that assertion. That assertion also assumes Trump inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, which isn't true, and would have had to make near perfect stock market investments over 50+ years, which nobody can achieve. So, essentially, the premise is total garbage.

> Trump casino and buying $3.5M

The casino's came way after Trump took over the organization. So zero impact on his inheritance, which was the initial claim.

Look, I know a lot of people don't like Trump, and have a serious vested interest in seeing him fail or knocking him down several pegs... but this is just petty and an untrue representation of reality. There's plenty of real things to knock him with... but this isn't one of them.

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

#460

Post by waterhouse » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

AgloeDreams wrote: post #316

awad wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a comment on the advertising but I am struck by how Tesla and Elon Musk remind me of Apple and Steve Jobs. Both very divisive companies and leaders prone to downright emotional attacks from one side and staunch defense by the other. While has been quite a bit of hyperbole, overselling, and straight up failure to deliver, you can't dispute that both pushed their respective industries forward almost singleha…

Steve Jobs didn't go off talking about how the stock is overvalued and go off producing short shorts as a joke. He had numerous notes of how he didn't care about what the competitors or nay-sayers said. Job's jabs at others (flash, app store rejections) were generally marketing, breif, and thought through. He almost never talked about future products and would often say 'let's see what the future holds'. Both are pro…

A thought comes to mind: Twitter wasn't a thing for most of Steve Jobs's career. (Looking at Wiki pages, Jobs's time at Apple was 1976-1985, then 1997-2011; Twitter was created in 2006.) Meanwhile, my impression is that most of Musk's antics occur on Twitter. If Steve Jobs grew up in the Twitter age, would he have done that kind of stuff too?

A Quora answer says Jobs didn't make any social media accounts at all, using only phone and email for communication (although it doesn't cite sources), and another article supports the idea that he never made a Twitter account. So that's a point against that theory. Though not against the underlying theory: "If you're a CEO with a certain kind of personality, you should stay the hell away from Twitter".