California judge rules that Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing for Autopilot
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
And then... "Currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. The activation and use of these features are dependent on development and regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions."
I can't believe they aren't forced to say that this may never happen, which is the reality given the history of it.
My question: Why isn't someone going to jail, when they have clearly broken a law?
Because the law in question is civil, not criminal, and because the violation was found by an executive branch administrative law judge, not by a court of general jurisdiction in even a civil lawsuit.
“Autopilot” is already a technical aviation term — planes don’t fly themselves while the pilot sleeps — so the misunderstanding comes from the public, not the term.
And without a legal framework defining responsibility for autonomous systems, the liability naturally falls back to the human who activates the feature.
So the root issue isn’t the marketing; it’s the regulatory vacuum that let the ambiguity persist.
(Just my impression as a non-expert observer.)
Regulators implicitly allowed the ambiguity to persist, and are now attempting to reframe or correct it retroactively.
It’s possible there were political or practical considerations — for example, a belief that successful autonomous driving would make future regulation easier, or at least postpone difficult legislative debates.
We can’t know what the internal reasoning was, but the long delay suggests more than simple oversight.
Lol wtf? Next you're going to tell me Bernie Madoff wasn't that bad because the SEC didn't intervene earlier.
I’m describing a structural question:
Why was the terminology tolerated for years before being deemed unacceptable?
Regardless of whether one trusts the FTC/SEC/etc., two things remain true:
1. If the naming was truly deceptive from day one, early intervention would have prevented later misunderstandings.
2. The long delay created a regulatory vacuum in which ambiguity grew.
That’s the frame I’m pointing to — not defending regulators, just asking why the shift happened only now.
If you're assertion is that the FTC should be much more sceptical of claims by corporations, then you have a point.
Whether the delay came from optimistic expectations about imminent progress, political or economic incentives, or simple regulatory inertia, the core issue remains the same: the terminology was tolerated for a long period, and that tolerance allowed ambiguity to accumulate.
My point isn’t about defending Tesla or trusting regulators’ judgment — it’s about asking why the shift happened only after years of implicit acceptance, and what effects that delay had on public understanding and responsibility.
https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2021.08.18%2...
https://progresschamber.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/AV_-F...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116199/documents/... page 40,41.
Politics and/or incompetence. Nothing to do with conspiracy theories. Government agencies are very transparent (implicitly historically; these days were explicitly and you can also now add outright corruption to that) in general (not just regarding Tesla specifically)