California's Department of Motor Vehicles has had it up to here with Tesla's "full self-driving" claims. In fact, the DMV is so fed up that the company may no longer be allowed to sell its cars within the state.
On July 28, the DMV's chief of industry services Ailene Short filed a complaint against Tesla, alleging that the company deliberately used misleading language in marketing Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" and "Autopilot" features. The complaint points to the names of the features themselves, as well as the descriptions of what the features should enable Tesla cars to do, as "untrue or misleading, and not based on facts."
In particular, the complaint calls out the following language, which currently appears on Tesla's website:
"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."
"When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you."
"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."
Autopilot is a feature that comes standard on all new Tesla cars, and it allows for automatic steering, lane changes, and braking while the driver supervises. The Full Self Driving beta feature, which costs $12,000 for users to opt into, launched in September 2021 and claims to allow for the abilities criticized by the DMV above. At launch, its name was under immediate scrutiny from the National Transportation Safety Board, which had an issue with the name's implication that the car would be fully autonomous. This is not the case, as Full Self Driving still requires the driver to be alert and actively engaged with driving in case of emergency or malfunction.
(Score: 5, Informative) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @05:23AM (26 children)
If you're too stupid to understand tenses, you're probably too stupid to even be allowed to own a car anyway. However, you might be smart enough to work as a lawyer.
I'm as happy to fling shit at Musk and his idiotic doomed-to-fail projects as the next man, but this seems to be just as dumb as "may contain nuts" health warnings on your nut bar.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Tuesday August 09 2022, @07:43AM (1 child)
Perhaps people expect the word "will" to apply when they buy a Tesla. i.e. when you spend a sh*t-tonne of money on an overpriced car you will have these features.
Unlike previous sections on the Tesla Autopilot page, there is nothing in the "From Home" and "To Your Destination" sections - where those quotes above come from - that say you cannot use the features, nor that they are future features. There is a disclaimer above, though. It's just not quite obviously referring to these sections.
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @10:12PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday August 09 2022, @08:43AM (6 children)
In any case Tesla don't sell cars, they sell motorised iPads. And I don't mean that as snark, that's what a Tesla is: A huge pile of computer technology with a giant battery pack (a.k.a. a giant iPad), and electric motors on each corner.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 09 2022, @02:30PM (5 children)
Unless I misunderstand how a Tesla is built, you still, generally have the motor/engine in one location. The four tires may have a bit of extra fancy stuff attached to them, but I'm guessing not that fancy.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday August 09 2022, @02:39PM (4 children)
Well, yeah, there are variations depending on whether it's rear-wheel or all-wheel drive, I was thinking all-wheel which actually only has two motors, but then it doesn't have corners either.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday August 09 2022, @03:41PM (3 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday August 09 2022, @05:13PM
you can buy single motor model 3 and dual motor model 3. same with most other teslas.
rivian has quad motors only, right now. dual motor due out later.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday August 09 2022, @11:13PM (1 child)
Somehow, I would think a four brushless motor direct drive design would be optimal. Minimize unsprung mass. ( Heavy wheels are not good !). No mechanical differentials. Everything but lock-stop ( park, dead stop, emergency hydraulic mechanical brake ) done magnetically. Brakes should not wear, as they lock only after no kinetic energy left in normal operation, however they must be capable of stopping the car in any situation.
Sounds like an interesting thing to design.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2022, @01:10AM
> I would think a four brushless motor direct drive design would be optimal.
You might think so until you start to consider failure modes. If one of the four motors quits under hard accel or decel, the car spins out, just like that, probably nothing you can do. Maybe a very fast stability control system that worked through activating the brakes could catch that spin? Possibly even worse if one controller fails "on" and starts to deliver full current and full torque to one corner of the car.
There is a lot to be said for a mechanical open differential that splits motor torque nearly-equally between the two wheels on an axle.
With that said, there have been race cars and enmgineering prototypes built with individual motors at each wheel. Often they showcase high level control of individual wheel "torque vectoring" to improve the performance (in a variety of different situations). But these are not usually designed for consumers who expect a long trouble-free and safe lifetime from their expensive purchase.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Tuesday August 09 2022, @10:07AM (12 children)
No. English modal verbs (can, could, may, might, should, ought, shall, will...) have multiple grammatical terms and the legalese regulations regarding their use don't just cover the future tense term. e.g. contract law's first tense "I will do x / pay y" is an obligation versus 2nd/3rd "He will do x / pay y" is a future promise that may or may not oblige depending on stipulated, or otherwise terms.
There's some points about the issue covered here that explain why "shall" and "must" are preferred in laws and contracts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_and_will [wikipedia.org]
That is, I wouldn't be surprised if, to prevent needing a law degree to gork "Taking X will..." (when X is sold by the speaker), "Taking Y's X will..." (when the speaker is Y and X is their product) and "Taking our X will..." (when X is sold by the speaker), California / Federal consumer laws forbid/heavily restrict such use of "will" in advertisements.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 09 2022, @01:12PM (4 children)
Offering powerful features in some indefinite future might count as failing the first bullet point. Maybe. Nothing else seems to apply here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Tuesday August 09 2022, @05:12PM (3 children)
I didn't say advertising is a contract. I gave an example ("e.g.") of how "will" is treated in contract law with respect to "will" having multiple grammatical terms to demonstrate "will" isn't simply treated as just a future tense verb.
Where I did speculate on what laws are being violated, I mentioned the possibility it might be "...California / Federal consumer laws..." specifically because they regulate advertisements.
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(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday August 09 2022, @11:26PM (2 children)
Marketers have a language all their own, crafted after psychological illusion and prestidigitational skill.
A typical example is "the people who took our pills lost FOUR times more weight!". The engineering translation is "FOUR times zero is zero."
Marketers hone their communication skills just as a magician hones presentation skills. Caveat Emptor.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Wednesday August 10 2022, @10:53AM (1 child)
I disagree. Marketing aren't doing anything legislators and contract lawyers haven't done previously or are still doing. It's just that the USA and UK are primarily mercantile and litigious (the merchants and lawyers are the upper classes as opposed to land-owners, industry and/or military as with most other nations) so matters are left in the hands of judicial decisions where lawyers and money does the talking as opposed to putting together institutions like language regulators where strict rules (like parsing state-machines and allowable verbs and sentence structures) are set to keep laws, contracts and advertisements from misleading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators [wikipedia.org]
On a whole, our societal norms regard verbal prowess as legitimate form of assault under the reasoning it's your fault for being dumb and uneducated (i.e. from the wrong class) in the same way other societies might consider a physical assault victim to be at fault for being too weak and lacking in backing (from the wrong class).
Anyhow, point is, it's not specific to marketers.
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(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday August 11 2022, @01:13AM
Thanks for the comment!
So right. Politicians/lawyers are the worst! I agree with you 100%. Ask any Judge who has had to let known criminals go free due to " technicalities".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @10:15PM (6 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 10 2022, @12:23PM (5 children)
There's something you're missing here: In most (all?) places, companies aren't legally allowed to advertise product features they aren't delivering upon sale unless they're making an explicit and unconditional obligation to deliver it at a specific date. That is, the way Tesla is using "will..." with themselves as the 2nd/3rd person to shake off the obligation behind an equivalent 1st person use is in and by-itself misleading. Then, when they have some clauses explicitly disclaim some promises with:
or your choice of a quote:
But then go on to say:
or worse, the following:
without similar disclaimers or even a token asterisk leading to a footnote to warn you it may depend on yet-to-be-delivered software development and yet-to-be-written laws and regulations, and by gradually changing from the ambiguously future "will..." to the very present "when you arrive... simply step out..." instructions, Tesla is being deliberately misleading.
That is, take the "will..." clause by itself and it's already ambiguous. Take it as a whole body-of-text, and it turns the latter paragraphs ambiguous.
And to be clear, the "park seek mode" is a planned feature: They have a separate "autopark" feature where, while still driving in the car, you can drive around the lot (yourself doing the driving) until the software cues you that it found a spot before you press the screen and it self-parks, while you're still in the car to supervise.
The worst part is that the whole advertisement and product value rests on such yet-to-be-delivered features. You can get cheaper and better preforming electrics with the same exact feature set for a fraction of the cost right now. So, Tesla isn't simply making empty promises in some material, their intrinsic quality itself is speculative. And that's not something consumer protection laws should tolerate.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 10 2022, @01:12PM (4 children)
But that's a different argument. And not the one the story raises, and not the one mentioned in the lawsuit, namely "statements that are untrue or misleading" not "statements that illegally mentioned product features they aren't delivering without making an explicit and unconditional obligaton to deliver on a specific date". The law they claim is being violated is "Representing that goods ... have ... characteristics, ...[or] uses, ... that they do not have". Which is a claim about the present being applied to statements clearly in the future tense, and thus making *no claim* about the present. Note that no mention of explicit obligations to deliver anything on specific dates is hidden within the ellipses.
"Untrue or misleading" - that's the clause I'm arguing against. You're gish galloping, or straw manning, or whatever, you're not arguing against the specific claims made. To be honest, that makes you OT. If you can find another reason why Tesla's been breaking the law, congratulations, try your own suit.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday August 10 2022, @04:41PM (3 children)
You do realize Tesla doesn't have any guarantees the cars they're currently selling through those advertisements could ever get approved for self-driving, right? That, when they're using "will...", they're not simply talking about a guaranteed future event that must happen. But rather, something that might happen; If their research produces the results they're hoping for; If the regulator is satisfied with their safety claims; If they're still in business; If they feel like...?
e.g. Imagine a drug advertisement saying "In the future, compound A will cure all"..."Some of compound A features will needs adjusting and regulatory approval. As the features are introduced, compound A will be continuously upgraded"..."Our pills contain compound A which will cure your cancer"..."All you'll need to do is pop a pill and you'll grow a new leg"..."When you feel bad, take our pill and you will get 20 years younger"...
Look, we shouldn't get too prescriptive about this. Fundamentally, language is misleading if people are being misled. Moreover, If "x will do y..." is understood by enough people as"when I buy x, it will do y" to the point the legislator and contract lawyers avoid "will..." entirely, it's just a matter of lacking education. Like it or not, it's what it is.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 11 2022, @11:41AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday August 11 2022, @12:36PM (1 child)
Well, what I remember is that Avatar and a few other films came out with 3D releases in both theater, physical media and streaming. And googling it around, there's still 3D broadcasting going on for some reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_television#Broadcasts [wikipedia.org]
Btw, apparently, some of those TVs came/come with a mode that convert conventional stereoscopic input into 3D display like how the VR headsets handle stereoscopic films. i.e. not the red/blue overlay but the side-by-side images. Also, looking it up, products is still getting out targeting that particular use case: https://deluxe.news/acers-new-predator-helios-300-gaming-laptop-aims-to-recreate-3d/ [deluxe.news]
Either way, they delivered a fully working feature and had some available content upon release so it's hardly the same thing even if discounting the content still being made due to it being so little.
And they get fined and banned for it: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/03/three-uk-advert-banned-for-misleading-real-5g-mobile-claim.html [ispreview.co.uk] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-367967A1.pdf [fcc.gov]
Admittedly though, they often get away with it in ways that make it worth while for them to repeat their violations.
Again, the point here is that the DMV is going after Tesla for making false claims which they are. I admit that when it comes to market regulations, every-is-doing-it would be a fair argument since the whole point is to regulate trade rather than impose some sense of morality. But it's a fact that if any other car manufacturer were to make these sorts of ridiculous claims, they would have been fined or banned. And there's plenty of examples regarding other features like millage and air pollution weren't allowed.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 11 2022, @02:28PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @11:26AM
They can't define the term "woman" and they don't understand pronouns. That's how stupid they are. Especially in California.
(Score: 3, Touché) by EvilSS on Tuesday August 09 2022, @03:43PM
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 09 2022, @09:49PM (1 child)
Tesla updates its cars' software over-the-air, so improvements increment on a regular basis.
I suspect the cars are mapping and re-mapping every road they drive on, too, such that they are building the most detailed data set of every pothole and construction zone that exists.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 09 2022, @10:23PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Tuesday August 09 2022, @11:58AM (5 children)
If a car is "FSD", I expect to be able to do useful (i.e. billable) things on my journeys. If the car is advertised asl "will full self drive", I'd also expect that happening at a point during my ownership that is significantly useful. (e.g. after a third of the usual owned duration, which could be 6 years). Someone owning a Tesla won't work at minimum wage, but we can't expect DDL rates either for everyone. Let's agree on $40/hr.
The car drives 10k miles a year, at an average speed of 30 mph. That's 333 hours spent in the car. Hence, owners should be eligible to a payout of $13.333 for every year owned after the second that the car wasn't FSD. I don't think anyone could call that unfair. Easy peasy.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:43PM (4 children)
Have they broken the law? No
Have they violated the terms of their contract? No.
If buyers are too stupid to understand that they weren't promised this feature, then we shouldn't deprive them of this learning experience. Or else they will continue to think their every desire is somehow the will of God.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by helel on Tuesday August 09 2022, @01:54PM (3 children)
If you go to their website and select a car to purchase it lists "Full Self-Driving" as one of its features. That seems pretty open and shut. Either the car can fully drive itself or it cannot. Either I'm getting the feature specified for the car I purchased or I am not.
Sure, you can argue that anyone who believed Tesla is an idiot but that doesn't magically obsolete Tesla of lying to their customers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 09 2022, @02:33PM (2 children)
Kit from Knight Rider would be awesome. But, a Tesla is no Kit, it just has a glorified cruise system.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 09 2022, @09:44PM (1 child)
It is more than glorified cruise control. It can take you on and off the freeway, pass slower traffic, and park itself. It can take you from point A to point B.
But it is not perfect. Sometimes it brakes when it doesn't need to. When lanes on the highway merge and you're in the left lane, it will dip right to find the sideline again. If there is debris in the lane a human driver could swerve onto the shoulder to avoid it, but the Tesla will just stop because it tries to keep you between the lines of the lane.
I relish the prospect of car travel where I can take a nap or daydream, but Tesla isn't there yet. On the other hand, will we ever get there if pioneers like Tesla don't forge the path?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2022, @01:31AM
> ... will we ever get there if pioneers like Tesla don't forge the path?
I'll argue the other side. We'll never get there if Tesla (and Uber, etc) keep killing innocent people and generally f'ing things up so badly that the whole idea of autonomous driving is given a bad rap. The result of enough of this bad behavior is that "FSD" will be banned across the board.
California is getting close to this point, obtaining a permit to test self-driving on the public roads now requires a very detailed application, vetting & reporting process: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/ [ca.gov]
The Google approach of careful and exhaustive testing is, imo, much more likely to convince a skeptical public that this is a good idea and not a bunch of hype.
Google is also (afaik) jumping directly to complete autonomy. The whole idea of SAE Level 2, and even more so with Level 3, where the human has to be ready to assume control on short notice is plain nutty. Most people aren't built to monitor automatic systems like this, complacency sets in and then, when the human is needed, they are not able to take over.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jman on Wednesday August 10 2022, @12:27PM
I'd actually written to the Tesla Board some years back - via the web page, not paper - and have not so surprisingly never heard back.
The idea was simple though, and may have helped with their current woes.
The phrase "Auto-Pilot" is disingenuous, as the technology's just not there yet for all that code to be doing the driving by itself.
We still need a human to be involved, or at least be *ready* to be involved at a moment's notice.
As with the function of the person sitting at right stick, a much better choice of words would have been "Co-Pilot".