11 ms·

As I said in another comment, these two were idiots driving drunk. Let's get that out of the way. The bigger issue here is how this deniability is all too conv

by ra7 3y ago

As I said in another comment, these two were idiots driving drunk. Let's get that out of the way. The bigger issue here is how this deniability is all too convenient for Tesla. The process goes like this: 1. Ship a clearly half baked system called "Full Self Driving". 2. Require driver's hands on the wheel at all times. 3. Be extremely non-transparent about your system's safety. Tesla's crash reports in the public NHTSA database contains absolutely no details. Everything is redacted, we can't even know if the crash happened with FSD or with plain old Autopilot [1]. This is in stark contrast to the reports filed by driverless companies like Waymo and Cruise to the CA DMV [2], which Tesla refuses to do. Also publish a "safety report" that's entirely marketing BS, which doesn't control for many factors (highway vs city streets, geography, time of day, age of cars, safety features, demographics) and hence is not apples-to-apples. Claim it's "safer than humans". [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-order-crash-reporting#data https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-orde... [2] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-collision-reports/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto... 4. When an accident happens, just say it's the driver's fault and that they should've known it's just an L2 system. 5. Tweet about FSD vN+1 that's going to totally bring Full Self Driving by end of the year.

basisword 3y ago
It should be illegal for them to call it full self drive. It's 100% false advertising not to mention the 'danger' that people will assume it is what it says it is.
- staunton 3y ago
  It probably is illegal...
  - Towaway69 3y ago
    ... and the fines have been factored into the bottom line.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    It might be legal, but in court what you advertise the car can do generally has high weight than what you put in the warning documentation. Thus Tesla is stupid for making any such claims as now they have admitted in court they think their car is fully self driving which means the car should be liable. Even if Tesla can prove that the car was under manual control the courts are still justified for finding Tesla for anything that happens as they have clearly claimed the car is self driving.
    - judge2020 3y ago
      What absurd logical leaps. If this is so clearly the case, then I don't know why every single law firm in the country isn't scrambling to sue Tesla via a class-action right this minute.
      - thejazzman 3y ago
        Don't arbitration agreements signed by most buyers the reason we'll never see any class actions here?
        bluGill 3y ago
        Most people have not bought a Tesla and so arbitration will not apply. Any by stander in a situation has standing to sue Tesla. Though that doesn't mean they will. Just because you can sue doesn't mean it is worth it.
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Can you bring this up to class action? I'd expect this to more be relevant when the family of someone killed wants to sue. Or more likely the insurance company who just had to pay out some $$$ that they want to recover.
  - mminer237 3y ago
    I agree. I just can't understand why the FTC hasn't done anything.
    - RIMR 3y ago
      Because it's not profitable, and the FTC actually doesn't care when mega-billionaires break the law for profit.
- kube-system 3y ago
  It should be illegal for them to call it even 1% self driving. Because it is no more than 0% self driving. There is no mode of operation in any Tesla where the human is ever, at any moment, not responsible for safely navigating the vehicle.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    Like "full self-driving" but where you're fully driving yourself? I had a '53 Studebaker with that feature. (this is a lie; never share car ownership details online, banks still don't know that we drive them in public)
- achatham 3y ago
  It is in California, but it hasn't been enforced yet: https://www.autobodynews.com/news/tesla-not-allowed-to-call-software-full-self-driving-in-california https://www.autobodynews.com/news/tesla-not-allowed-to-call-...
EA-3167 3y ago
I think the quote from the article really sums it up in plain language, and the argument Musk presents should be familiar to anyone here, who's heard the "Robots > Humans in a car" argument. > “Regardless of how drunk Hans was, Musk has claimed that this car can drive itself and is essentially better than a human,” Bass said. “We were sold a false sense of security.”
- sokoloff 3y ago
  I'm no Tesla fan boy, but it seems entirely possible that even the limited capability of FSD was better/safer than a driver whose BAC was 0.26%, even if this one ended up in a fatal crash, as that happens to drunk human drivers at the rate of more than 10K deaths per year in the US. If this is the first FSD death in the world, Tesla is probably thankful that it was someone who was hammered.
  - yardie 3y ago
    I believe this is the first fatality where Tesla can't weasel their way out of the cause. There have been multiple crashes, some fatal, where FSD was engaged but disengaged a split second before the crash. So in the mere seconds between the autopilot disengaging and the impact the driver is supposed to be fully up to speed on what's about to happen and avoid it. Also, a lot of these drivers were behaving in a unsympathetic manor (ie sleeping while FSD engaged) and the jury determined they were being a bit more reckless than what the media would let you believe.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    The problem is that someone who was hammered might have taken a Taxi home if they didn't have a car that claimed it could drive them home autonomously. In which case it doesn't matter how much better FSD is than a drunk driver. A colleague of mine actually bought a Tesla for this reason - to get them home safely from the bar. Tesla's marketing is way out of step from their actual capabilities and it gives people a false sense of security.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
6. Refuse to turn over crash data you have to investigators 7. Somehow manage to set conditions that prohibit the government from disclosing the data you do eventually provide Edit: forgot one! 8. Decide that RADAR sensors are too expensive, and stop using them. But because you don't want owners, the public, press, or regulators to see how much worse the stereo camera systems perform compared to combined radar and and camera, disable the RADAR in all the older cars
- metabagel 3y ago
  Well, I mean I think it’s expensive to try to maintain two systems - one with LIDAR and the other without.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    one would expect that to be a part of the calculus for stopping to offer them, but apparently it wasn't.
- endtime 3y ago
  9. And never include LIDAR in the first place...
- ericd 3y ago
  Anecdotal, but I have a car with radar installed, didn’t notice that it was disabled, fwiw. It’s better now than when the car was new.
xenadu02 3y ago
Full disclosure: participated in Tesla's IPO, own a Tesla. Tesla should be doing two things that would greatly reduce their liability while also keeping customers happy. Overall I think it wouldn't change the number of people buying into FSD anyway so there wouldn't be much downside for them. 1. Offer refunds for those for paid for FSD. Full refund until FSD has been enabled for a year and used more than N times, prorated after that based on usage. That gives existing customers a window to try it out and get their money back if they don't like it, with a full refund if they only tried it out or a partial refund even if they used the feature a lot. 2. Be clearer in their marketing and on the purchase page about the feature. Sell your vision of it but also be honest about the current state of it. IMHO it isn't that hard of a sell to most customers but you'd be setting accurate expectations. Tech-aware people or those of us into EV tech are aware of FSD's limits but you are only going to disappoint people if they think FSD really is capable of full unattended self driving right now. That only hurts your brand and erodes trust. You can't hide the details in 6-point lawyerese and expect customers to be happy with you. I was aware of the limits of FSD when we bought the car and considered it an investment in the future... but I don't use it often and told my spouse not to either. It is a beta feature and must be used with care.
- itishappy 3y ago
  > Be clearer in their marketing and on the purchase page about the feature. Do you have any examples in mind of where this feature was billed confusingly? The product page and Model S purchase page both include clear disclaimers in both the first sentence or directly below the bulleted feature list. > Full Self Driving > Your vehicle will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve. https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/models/design#overview https://www.tesla.com/models/design#overview
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Just the 140 characters you quoted contains a confusing billing, IMO. Is it "Full Self Driving" xor is "Minimal driver intervention" required?
AlexandrB 3y ago
> 1. Ship a clearly half baked system called "Full Self Driving". In my opinion unless the manufacturer accepts legal liability[1], it's not "self-driving" despite any marketing to the contrary. "Put your money where your mouth is." Tesla's marketing has been extremely misleading in this regard. [1] https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res...
ijhuygft776 3y ago
Hopefully Tesla gets sued for false claims...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
leetgirl83 3y ago
He was not on FSD. The software had unfortunately never been downloaded. I say “unfortunately”, because the accident probably would not have happened if FSD had been engaged - Elon Musk https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1757652781010497798?s=20 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1757652781010497798?s=20
- rpy 3y ago
  Oh. Well he always truthfully and accurately represents the situation so I guess that’s the end of that.

by ra7 3y ago

basisword 3y ago

It should be illegal for them to call it full self drive. It's 100% false advertising not to mention the 'danger' that people will assume it is what it says it is.

staunton 3y ago
It probably is illegal...
- Towaway69 3y ago
  ... and the fines have been factored into the bottom line.
- bluGill 3y ago
  It might be legal, but in court what you advertise the car can do generally has high weight than what you put in the warning documentation. Thus Tesla is stupid for making any such claims as now they have admitted in court they think their car is fully self driving which means the car should be liable. Even if Tesla can prove that the car was under manual control the courts are still justified for finding Tesla for anything that happens as they have clearly claimed the car is self driving.
  - judge2020 3y ago
    What absurd logical leaps. If this is so clearly the case, then I don't know why every single law firm in the country isn't scrambling to sue Tesla via a class-action right this minute.
    - thejazzman 3y ago
      Don't arbitration agreements signed by most buyers the reason we'll never see any class actions here?
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Most people have not bought a Tesla and so arbitration will not apply. Any by stander in a situation has standing to sue Tesla. Though that doesn't mean they will. Just because you can sue doesn't mean it is worth it.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Can you bring this up to class action? I'd expect this to more be relevant when the family of someone killed wants to sue. Or more likely the insurance company who just had to pay out some $$$ that they want to recover.
- mminer237 3y ago
  I agree. I just can't understand why the FTC hasn't done anything.
  - RIMR 3y ago
    Because it's not profitable, and the FTC actually doesn't care when mega-billionaires break the law for profit.
kube-system 3y ago
It should be illegal for them to call it even 1% self driving. Because it is no more than 0% self driving. There is no mode of operation in any Tesla where the human is ever, at any moment, not responsible for safely navigating the vehicle.
- klyrs 3y ago
  Like "full self-driving" but where you're fully driving yourself? I had a '53 Studebaker with that feature. (this is a lie; never share car ownership details online, banks still don't know that we drive them in public)
achatham 3y ago
It is in California, but it hasn't been enforced yet: https://www.autobodynews.com/news/tesla-not-allowed-to-call-software-full-self-driving-in-california https://www.autobodynews.com/news/tesla-not-allowed-to-call-...

EA-3167 3y ago

I think the quote from the article really sums it up in plain language, and the argument Musk presents should be familiar to anyone here, who's heard the "Robots > Humans in a car" argument. > “Regardless of how drunk Hans was, Musk has claimed that this car can drive itself and is essentially better than a human,” Bass said. “We were sold a false sense of security.”

sokoloff 3y ago
I'm no Tesla fan boy, but it seems entirely possible that even the limited capability of FSD was better/safer than a driver whose BAC was 0.26%, even if this one ended up in a fatal crash, as that happens to drunk human drivers at the rate of more than 10K deaths per year in the US. If this is the first FSD death in the world, Tesla is probably thankful that it was someone who was hammered.
- yardie 3y ago
  I believe this is the first fatality where Tesla can't weasel their way out of the cause. There have been multiple crashes, some fatal, where FSD was engaged but disengaged a split second before the crash. So in the mere seconds between the autopilot disengaging and the impact the driver is supposed to be fully up to speed on what's about to happen and avoid it. Also, a lot of these drivers were behaving in a unsympathetic manor (ie sleeping while FSD engaged) and the jury determined they were being a bit more reckless than what the media would let you believe.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  The problem is that someone who was hammered might have taken a Taxi home if they didn't have a car that claimed it could drive them home autonomously. In which case it doesn't matter how much better FSD is than a drunk driver. A colleague of mine actually bought a Tesla for this reason - to get them home safely from the bar. Tesla's marketing is way out of step from their actual capabilities and it gives people a false sense of security.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

6. Refuse to turn over crash data you have to investigators 7. Somehow manage to set conditions that prohibit the government from disclosing the data you do eventually provide Edit: forgot one! 8. Decide that RADAR sensors are too expensive, and stop using them. But because you don't want owners, the public, press, or regulators to see how much worse the stereo camera systems perform compared to combined radar and and camera, disable the RADAR in all the older cars

metabagel 3y ago
Well, I mean I think it’s expensive to try to maintain two systems - one with LIDAR and the other without.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  one would expect that to be a part of the calculus for stopping to offer them, but apparently it wasn't.
endtime 3y ago
9. And never include LIDAR in the first place...
ericd 3y ago
Anecdotal, but I have a car with radar installed, didn’t notice that it was disabled, fwiw. It’s better now than when the car was new.

xenadu02 3y ago

Full disclosure: participated in Tesla's IPO, own a Tesla. Tesla should be doing two things that would greatly reduce their liability while also keeping customers happy. Overall I think it wouldn't change the number of people buying into FSD anyway so there wouldn't be much downside for them. 1. Offer refunds for those for paid for FSD. Full refund until FSD has been enabled for a year and used more than N times, prorated after that based on usage. That gives existing customers a window to try it out and get their money back if they don't like it, with a full refund if they only tried it out or a partial refund even if they used the feature a lot. 2. Be clearer in their marketing and on the purchase page about the feature. Sell your vision of it but also be honest about the current state of it. IMHO it isn't that hard of a sell to most customers but you'd be setting accurate expectations. Tech-aware people or those of us into EV tech are aware of FSD's limits but you are only going to disappoint people if they think FSD really is capable of full unattended self driving right now. That only hurts your brand and erodes trust. You can't hide the details in 6-point lawyerese and expect customers to be happy with you. I was aware of the limits of FSD when we bought the car and considered it an investment in the future... but I don't use it often and told my spouse not to either. It is a beta feature and must be used with care.

itishappy 3y ago
> Be clearer in their marketing and on the purchase page about the feature. Do you have any examples in mind of where this feature was billed confusingly? The product page and Model S purchase page both include clear disclaimers in both the first sentence or directly below the bulleted feature list. > Full Self Driving > Your vehicle will be able to drive itself almost anywhere with minimal driver intervention and will continuously improve. https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/models/design#overview https://www.tesla.com/models/design#overview
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Just the 140 characters you quoted contains a confusing billing, IMO. Is it "Full Self Driving" xor is "Minimal driver intervention" required?

AlexandrB 3y ago

> 1. Ship a clearly half baked system called "Full Self Driving". In my opinion unless the manufacturer accepts legal liability[1], it's not "self-driving" despite any marketing to the contrary. "Put your money where your mouth is." Tesla's marketing has been extremely misleading in this regard. [1] https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res...

ijhuygft776 3y ago

Hopefully Tesla gets sued for false claims...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

leetgirl83 3y ago

He was not on FSD. The software had unfortunately never been downloaded. I say “unfortunately”, because the accident probably would not have happened if FSD had been engaged - Elon Musk https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1757652781010497798?s=20 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1757652781010497798?s=20

rpy 3y ago
Oh. Well he always truthfully and accurately represents the situation so I guess that’s the end of that.