Hacker News Reader

Comment by bgorman | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much BMW/Daimler/Volkswagen had to do with this.

It is a common practice for technology companies to offer features that will only become available after a certain time period. It actually takes time and money to build these features.

I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision.

Disclosure: I do not any automotive companies stock, and I am a dual US/German citizen.

View on HN

> I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision.

What are you implying? That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision? That the judges were biased? Bribed? Vague statements like this are very unhelpful, because you can't argue against them but they try to make a point anyway.

I am implying that governments (including court systems) often make decisions directly and indirectly to protect domestic companies at the expense of foreign companies.

> That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision?

Probably that + the constituents. When a very large chunk of your constituents are employed by local car manufacturing companies, letting those companies fail and lose to a foreign competitor not only loses money for those companies, it also puts a threat of unemployment on your voting population.

Lobbying from local car companies + your voting population's employment dependent on success of those local car companies is a very strong combination.

EDIT: to clarify, I am aware that judges in Germany are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would support the ban just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.

But in Germany courts have basically no relationship to "their constituents" because judges aren't elected but appointed (lifetime appointment). Of course you might argue that promotion chances are higher if your decisions are "popular", however such a small decision as in the current case which hase basically not had any media attention in Germany will most likely not have any impact on the deciding judges career.

Edit: after reviewing it, there hase been some media attention on this case in Germany as well.

Judges in Germany generally aren’t elected. The few that are cannot be re-elected and have fairly long terms.

The voting population in this case would consist of politicians in the legislative branch.

I am aware they are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would do it just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.

Whether the decision was influenced by German car makers, I think the decision is correct. The car is not fully autonomous and requires your hands on the wheel all the times.

Announcing features to be delivered later is common. Charging up front for those features with no delivery date is a bit less common.

In any case, should it not be made clear what the current capabilities of the car and system are as part of the advertising and purchase process?

That seems to be the issue that the court is discussing, not the premise that Tesla is pre-selling future autonomous capabilities that have not yet been delivered.

You are not required to buy the "full self-driving" package when you buy a tesla.

It is abundantly clear what the current feature set is. From https://www.tesla.com/autopilot :

> Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane.

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

Requirement to buy has nothing to do with it.

The page you linked has a video that says:

"The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself"

They also sell a package literally named "Full Self-Driving Capability"

Yes, they qualify it in smaller print, in the manual, on the website, etc. But the number of Youtube videos of people showing their car "driving itself" shows that there's definitely an implication that the car can almost drive itself and is constantly learning and getting better, reinforced by things said by Elon over the years.

It's not blatantly incorrect, but it does all combine to create a picture than can be misleading for someone who doesn't dig into the details. And misleading marketing is what is being discussed by the court.

Right, the video is a tech demo of FSD. Directly above - the first words on the page - are:

"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future" (emphasis mine)

> They also sell a package literally named "Full Self-Driving Capability"

Yes, and the option explains exactly what's included and what's future: https://www.tesla.com/model3/design#autopilot

> an implication that the car can almost drive itself and is constantly learning and getting better

The car can almost drive itself, with driver supervision. On-ramp to off-ramp autopilot including lane changes and exits is real today. The car is constantly learning and getting better, we get neural network updates pushed to us that improve AP performance roughly monthly.

Frankly your arguments prove the opposite of your point -- I know what AP does, you know what AP does; where are all these plebs that are supposedly being hoodwinked?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com