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> The argument, best as I can tell, is that the name of their cruise control system somehow convinces innocent, everyday consumers into having deadly high speed
by clouddrover 6y ago
> The argument, best as I can tell, is that the name of their cruise control system somehow convinces innocent, everyday consumers into having deadly high speed crashes on short cul-du-sacs
Musk has been hyping Tesla's "full self driving" capability for years (see xvector's comment from a couple of months ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26519357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26519357). Musk does it so much that people believe the system can do more than it really can.
Musk says this with a megaphone to his 54.7 million followers: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/22/18510828/tesla-elon-musk-autonomy-day-investor-comments-self-driving-cars-predictions https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/22/18510828/tesla-elon-musk-...
But then Tesla privately tells regulators that "full self driving" is only level 2: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39647/tesla-admits-current-full-self-driving-beta-will-always-be-a-level-2-system-emails https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39647/tesla-admits-current-ful...
And then Tesla privately says that Musk's comments don't match engineering reality: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-autopilot-dmv-fsd-exaggeration https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/7/22424592/tesla-elon-musk-a...
At what point does "eccentric nerd" really just mean "huckster"?
The most responsible thing Musk can do here is to very publicly admit that autopilot can't do what he's been selling. Or will his eccentricity prevent that from happening?
- simondotau 6y agoI don't think anyone disagrees that Elon's forward-looking statements about future autonomous driving capabilities have been consistently egregiously optimistic. But forward-looking statements about future product timelines aren't relevant to what customers believe Autopilot's capabilities are today. It is strange to claim that the autopilot feature "can't do what he's been selling" by pointing to statements containing qualifiers such as "I think we are less than two years away" and "I think probably by end of next year".
- clouddrover 6y agoWhat would your average person think "full self driving" means? And what does Tesla's "full self driving" actually do?
- simondotau 6y agoI'm not talking about the "full self driving" optional feature. Personally I agree with criticism of the FSD product name and I think it's an inappropriate and misleading name. But that's not relevant here, because the car did not have the "full self driving" feature. This is actually very important, because it means the customer explicitly declined Tesla's repeated prompts to option "full self driving" features into their vehicle. Therefore this customer will have been acutely aware that "full self driving" is a feature their car did not have and thus the car could not be capable of any such "full self-driving".
- clouddrover 6y agoIt had "full self driving". He said so himself: https://insideevs.com/news/507038/nhtsa-investigate-tesla-crash-california/ https://insideevs.com/news/507038/nhtsa-investigate-tesla-cr...
- carlivar 5y agoIt is amusing that this comment thread came to an abrupt end once you were contradicted about what is "actually very important".