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Comment by wfhordie | Hacker News Reader

> but the way it is advertised suggests otherwise.

How is it advertised?

> Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.

The marketing is weird. They mix up current capabilities and future aspirations deliberately.

For instance, here:

> The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.

They actually mean that the system is designed such that "in the future" it will be able to do this. The previous sentence is "All new Tesla cars have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances", and you're supposed to carry that context forward into the following sentence.

Another aspiration, which if you weren't reading carefully you might assume was a present capability:

> All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don’t say anything, your car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed destination. Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigating urban streets, complex intersections and freeways.

It's intentionally misleading.

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/autopilot

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PS. Yes, there are caveats: "Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous". That doesn't make the rest of the marketing copy clear.

While one would of course hope that people operating automobiles were aware of the limitations of safety and assistive systems, Tesla certainly pushes the boundaries of responsibly disclosing what its vehicles can and can't do--especially in a world where every product manual includes pages and pages of safety warnings that pretty much no one reads.

Let's grab a random page from a few years ago (before the court cases) http://web.archive.org/web/20180202042014/https://www.tesla....

"Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars

All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver."

Now, I can see how in a court of law you can make various arguments about what that promises, but I can see how someone would interpret that as it can drive better than they do.

But it doesn't matter how "someone" interprets it. It matters how lawyers and judges interpret it. "Someone" can interpret it to mean anything -- most people are idiots. I don't say this pejoratively, that's precisely why we need better consumer protection and advertising laws, but as they currently stand, this isn't likely to result in anything.

>that's precisely why we need better consumer protection and advertising laws

There are plenty of laws. Most products come with more pages of safety warnings than are in the rest of the user's manual. And, in California, you're informed that pretty much every building you enter or product you use causes cancer.

I did not say plenteous, I said better, i.e. effective.

In 2016, a video was published on Tesla's website "this car is driving itself, the driver is there just for legal reasons"

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/79991021385159065...

"By Tesla's estimates, owners can estimate to earn $30k a year by turning their car into a robotaxi". (2019)

>How is it advertised?

That it's far safer than the average human driver?

Not really. That a human driving in conjunction with autopilot enabled is far safer.

If anyone would read that as the car driving autonomy being far safer we would have fatal crashes every day.

>That a human driving in conjunction with autopilot enabled is far safer.

This is in direct contradiction to Google/Waymo's research on the matter.

Does Tesla have research to back up this claim? Of course they do not.

Musk is in Brazil as we speak claiming the cars will be driverless within the year.

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