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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

Why are they allowed to call it that even though it is not ready for the Full part? Is that not false advertising?

Complete Cure for any Cancer(tm) *

* The statement isn’t approved by FDA. Therapeutic effect isn’t differnt from placebo in clinical trials. By reading this you forfeit any right to sue us.

I'd expect to see that on an Instagram ad for a fly by night supplement company.

But from a publicly traded company that presumably have lawyers on retainer to look these things over?

They keep their lawyers ready for the lawsuits, no time for the meaningful check and balance bullshit.

It's worse, Tesla's claims endangers others on the road.

They aren’t allowed to in Germany [1]. I wish more countries would follow suit.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/tesla-autopilot-self-driving...

We in the US allow businesses to be everything from sneaky to outright liars. We used to value customer satisfaction and profit, now it's just 'get too big to fail/be refulated'.

I can't believe we still allow car dealerships to offer deals no one qualifies for with 10 seconds of impossible-to-follow sped up gibberish that essentially voids what they said before.

Also commercials 10x louder than the programming being watched is illegal, but I challenge you to find a channel on cable that doesn't do it. Makes me hate walking by tvs.

Car dealerships only exist because the US passed laws that mandated their existence.

Yes, they were mandated by law. Those laws were very popular because they solved real problems.

I'm not sure why "mandated by law" is assumed to be a bad thing.

Even in Australia, where we have strong consumer protection, they still call it 'Full Self Driving Capability'.

Then underneath: "The currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. Some features require turn signals and are limited in range. The activation and use of these features are dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of kilometres of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving features evolve, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates."

I guess the key word that lets them get away with it here is "Capability".

They very intentionally mislead in their advertising. The feature list includes this:

> Full Self-Driving Computer

That sounds like self driving but it absolutely isn't. You're paying for only having the computer, it doesn't work and will not work before the end of the economic life of the car but you are paying for it.

All the other things you get from "full self driving" are driver assist functions that other car makers also offer.

Yes, it's strange considering they already settled a previous lawsuit over misrepresenting the safety of the self-driving capabilities of their cars... There has been talk of potentially forming another class-action lawsuit to deal with Tesla's false advertising over autonomous driving. The whole area doesn't have many federal regulations yet. That's also part of the issue

I'm a fair way from the vocal HN crowd on this one. I can't see the problem with Tesla calling what they have "Full" self driving. I don't know who keeps the official definition, but I don't care what they think and vice versa. This looks like full self driving to me.

You lot are very demanding. I'm not sure the public will care that much.

Well, when people read full self driving, they think they never have to touch the wheel in whatever circumstance. Can you remove the wheel? That the public does not care does not mean it is not a wrong message which might lead to bad accidents, by the public.

My retort to those people is that would probably be illegal, and they shouldn't expect to be able to do illegal things. I don't think I've heard of a self driving car yet where it is OK to take your hands off the wheel.

The issue is that this is not about reading the small print: this is about the point that if you walk into the street, hit up a stranger and ask if the phrase 'full self driving' suggests to them that they need to keep hands on the wheel, pay attention or anything like that.

There are 1000s of videos on the web where people are doing things in Teslas, including having sex, while driving and that gives me the distinct impression that the public did not read the small print and believes the marketing phrasing.

It is false advertising and I find it weird that it is allowed. People will believe it and not spend time sweating the nuances like you or I would.

I believe most people have read the fine print. They just don’t believe or understand the limitations, in the light of the amazing things it can already do. They understand the potential consequences, but they naively believe that anything bad will happen to someone else.

By way of example, the causes to most industrial accidents are well known in advance, and workers are trained to avoid them by using proper procedures or safety equipment. Yet these same accidents still occur with regularity. Why? Because some people will be too lazy/ignorant/stupid to follow directions. You can’t make anything foolproof, because the universe will simply evolve a bigger fool.

Don’t blame the car. Blame the idiots behind the wheel that do the stupid things. They are the problem here.

Its great that you believe that. I dont and we can stop the conversation here.

Here's a video from 2018, from the official Tesla account. https://vimeo.com/192179726

It starts with the words "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." The rest of the video shows the car moving without the person touching the wheel.

So yeah, I do indeed wonder where people have gotten the impression that it is OK to take your hands off the wheel in a Tesla-make car.

You make it sounds like its a minor technicality. The reason you cant take your hands off the wheel isnt because of outdated laws, its because Tesla's software will happily steer the car into stationary and moving objects alike, as well as make other dangerous moves like late lane changes across solid lines.

However, it's kind of genius if you think about it, that tesla has people paying 10k a pop to test their software and collect data for them.

> This looks like full self driving to me.

‘Looks’ can be deceiving.

Especially when the Tesla CEO overpromised to his customers about achieving Level 5 self driving capabilities, when a year later it was found to be still admittedly ‘Level 2’.

I have to give it to Musk for being able to continuously mislead his customers and continue to make money out of a product feature that does not work as advertised.

If it was anyone else they would be sued to the ground.

> I can't see the problem with Tesla calling what they have "Full" self driving.

I have no problem with them calling it ‘Fools’ Self Driving.

It's the exact opposite.

The question here is not what the "official" definition is. It's what Tesla drivers and potential owners would think it means.

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