I am glad people are starting to see the irresponsibility in some of Teslas Marketing. It was clear from day one that Teslas autopilot is a glorified lane assist and therefore should not be sold as some sort of autonomous ready vehicle.
When I first complained about how autopilot was being marketed here on HN, I was down voted and told I don't know what autopilot means.
In addition to today's Autopilot, Telsa are charging customers $3,000 for a hypothetical future "Full Self-Driving Capability" feature on the Model 3 and others.
> "All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go," Tesla's ordering page says. "Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed."
This is very likely to be a huge balance sheet liability and probably won't be a real possibility until the cars are really old and near the end of their life. They don't give a real timetable so maybe they can get by with not delivering it for a couple decades, but it seems like that would land them in some kind of class action legal trouble.
It's not only deceptive but it puts public at risk.
The other day I was on 101 in the evening heading south (this is one the main highways in San Francisco Bay Area) where I was behind a Tesla on the fast lane. The Tesla in front of me was acting rather erratic. Fast jolt like corrections once in a while, etc. So I got annoyed by the erratic movements and passed the car. As I passed I glanced over. Sure enough, the driver was on his phone doing something and I'm guessing was relying on the auto pilot.
To be clear, the story here is that a couple of consumer groups have written the FTC to complain about Tesla. That might be enough to get something started, but public complaints != formal investigation. That said, the FTC did successfully order VW to pay $1.2 billion for its diesel shenanigans:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/05/feder...
I get that people respect and are excited by Musk's vision and work, nevermind the cars, but I feel even Tesla fans should be able to agree that the current Autopilot homepage, which is going to be the main info source for Autopilot for anyone not in possession of the owner's manual.
Someone at Tesla made the deliberate decision to have the page's headline and very first words be, "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars", followed by a paragraph of text about full-self driving, followed by order buttons for Model S/Model X.
The next thing on that page is a video. It's the first and only video on the Autopilot page, and it is a 2016 self-driving demo, that Tesla has (as far as we know) not been able to push to production nor do extensive testing (assuming they test in California, which requires a mileage report).
When you buy a Tesla, aren't the purchase options for Autopilot and (future) full-self driving separate options, at a cost of $5000 and $3000, respectively? Yes, buying AP is required to buy FSD. But my point is that Autopilot exists as its own separate feature completely independent of FSD.
So to belabor the obvious, why is the only visual demo on Tesla Autopilot a 2016 alpha demo of full self driving? On Youtube I can find plenty of amateur demos of the AP features. What possible reason is there for not creating separate pages for Autopilot and FSD, other than to have consumers conflate the two systems?
I'm at probably 2,000 miles in AP on my Model 3, and at this point, I feel like I'm very knowledgeable about where I can trust AP and where I can't. I do fear that people will give it too much trust in the beginning, and not try to learn how it behaves, because then, it's dangerous.
Dying in a Tesla is relatively hard to do, but getting hurt or even just totaling your car because you didn't understand how AP works is bad (and dangerous for others, too!)
I feel like maybe they shouldn't turn on AP until TACC has been active for some period of time, so that you can get used to the car and how it behaves. Even now, I am sometimes surprised (like the odd behavior when stopped traffic is ahead of you a ways, and the car right in front of you changes out of your line - your car doesn't notice the stopped traffic, so you have to stop yourself or you would slam into the stopped cars). I have to assume that, at some point, the front facing camera will supplement the radar and say, "hey, that looks like stopped traffic - I should stop", but I can understand, from a software development perspective, why that's a hard problem.
Tesla seriously jumped the gun in marketing their partial autonomy as "Autopilot" when it's still level 3 autonomy at best (requires a human driver to intervene when necessary). Until we leap over the 'uncanny valley' of partial automation and have level 4 autonomy available it would be disingenuous to call such a feature "autopilot".
The advocacy groups say Tesla’s promotions of Autopilot suggest otherwise and are deceptive. Among the examples cited in the letter is Tesla’s Autopilot website, which proclaims Tesla vehicles have “full self-driving hardware” and contains a video posted that when played begins with text reading “the person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”
I agree that deceptive marketing should be punished.
With that out of the way, I am genuinely curious:
Has you or anyone you know ever believed that Tesla's have autopilot?
Anyone I have ever spoken to basically thinks that Teslas have a feature to keep you in the lane -- an advanced cruise control -- and that you must have your hands near the wheel.
Please note that even if nobody thought Teslas have autopilot, I still think deceptive marketing should be punished. I'm simply trying to gather some perspective from others, if this is actually a thought that is out there in the wild.
Good, I like most of what Musk did, but always had issues with bringing semi capable drive assist that clearly made some accident possible. Not causing it, enabling irresponsible behavior and coating their product with glitter in the same time. I don't think it's right for companies to sell that sort of things.
Frankly I'm surprised it took this long to happen. It's a bit sad that people had to die when we could potentially have prevented it from happening.
This is obvious once you use it.
what ever happened to that coast to coast demo?
I used to admire what Musk did at Tesla; I even put the $1k down for a Model 3 reservation on the first day over two years ago.
Since then I've lost my faith in his honesty. He's been consistently and intentionally misrepresenting what Tesla can deliver and when.
Worse, he is taking a page from Donald Trump's playbook. Faced with negative media coverage, Musk is now attacking the media and wants to build a bubble of alternative truth controlled by himself.
Rather than fix Tesla's communications, he wants to build some kind of website where "the public can rate the core truth of any article" and shame individual journalists:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999367582271422464
Can he be so naïve that he expects an Internet public to arrive at a consensus on complex issues? Of course not, he hasn't been in a coma for the past twenty years. His proposed "Muskopedia" would just end up controlled by online partisans devoted to embellishing his takes.
(Reminds me that I should probably take my $1k out. The Model 3 ship date for Europe is still a year away.)
Repeat after me: "Autopilot does not mean autonomous".
And so it begins, the tearing down of a highly successful company.
I like how the only pro Tesla comment in this entire thread is grayed out at the bottom. Not suspicious at all...
Tesla's lawyers would have this covered. It sounds to me like a bunch of shorts who are sweating Telsa's recent moves to cut production costs and raise the price of the Model S. I hope they get their comeuppance.
The advertising is clearly deceptive. Read their marketing materials:[1]
"Build upon Enhanced Autopilot and order Full Self-Driving Capability on your Tesla. ... All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don’t say anything, the car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed destination or just home if nothing is on the calendar. Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed. When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you."
Tesla does not have that technology. Not even close. Their cars do not have the sensor suite to do it. They did a demo back in 2016 of a limited self-driving capability on quiet roads in Los Altos Hills. They haven't said much since.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot