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Both Fred Lambert at Electrek:
Tesla on self-driving claims: ‘failure to realize long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud’

https://electrek.co/2022/12/07/tesl...ealize-long-term-aspirational-goal-not-fraud/


Tesla defended itself in a lawsuit over its self-driving claims brought by a customer by saying that “mere failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud.”

In September, we reported on a Tesla owner filing a class-action lawsuit against Tesla over “allegedly misleading the public regarding its Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, and Full Self-Driving Capability (‘FSD’) technology.”

Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all its vehicles produced going forward have “all the needed hardware” to become self-driving with future software updates.

However, the automaker has yet to deliver on the promise, and over the last few years, some owners have started to doubt Tesla’s ability to deliver at all – leading to the lawsuit now.

Last week, Tesla filed to have the lawsuit dismissed, which resulted in a rare comment from the automaker about not having delivered on self-driving yet [GRA: See title]. . . .

Calling Tesla’s advertisement that its vehicles will become self-driving a “long-term, aspirational goal” is the most cautious description of the goal from the automaker to date. But the approach will make it difficult for the plaintiffs.

They need to prove that Tesla intentionally misled customers into thinking they were buying vehicles that would become self-driving. They would need to prove that Tesla knew it couldn’t deliver on the promise, which could be difficult to do.

Tesla never promised a specific timeline for delivering on the goal, but CEO Elon Musk previously said that Tesla would achieve self-driving in 2020. The goal has been delayed several times.

In the motion to dismiss, Tesla argues that the complaint actually shows that Tesla has been working toward the goal of self-driving:

To the contrary, allegations in the Complaint demonstrate that Tesla has been constantly improving its ADAS technology by releasing software updates, with a goal of achieving more and better autonomy capabilities in the future.

Tesla also references several comments made by the company and CEO Elon Musk that constituted warnings that there will be issues bringing self-driving to market.

In addition, from early on, Tesla made clear that “there will still be a significant time gap, varying widely by jurisdiction, before true self-driving is approved by regulators.”

The company ends its argument by saying that “the Complaint identifies no specific timeline promised by Tesla to release fully autonomous capabilities to the general public.”

Electrek’s Take
It’s interesting that at least Tesla admits failure to achieve the goal because I’ve seen them moving the goalposts as of late.

Musk went from mentioning “1 million robotaxi on the road by the end of the year” to “1 million people with FSD Beta by the end of the year” to “anyone who bought FSD will get access to the Beta in North America by the end of the year.”

Tesla has now achieved that last version of the goal, but that’s so far from the original goal that it’s not in the same league.

On top of what we hear about a new sensor suite potentially coming, things are not looking great on the FSD front. As I have said for a long time, Tesla should at least offer refunds to those who bought the FSD package.




Re the bolded section:
Tesla says it is adding radar in its cars next month amid self-driving suite concerns

https://electrek.co/2022/12/06/tesla-radar-car-next-month-self-driving-suite-concerns/


Tesla told the FCC that it plans to market a new radar starting next month. The move raises even more concerns about potentially needed updates to its hardware suite to achieve the promised self-driving capability.

Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all its vehicles produced going forward have “all the needed hardware” to become self-driving with future software updates.

It turned out not to be true.

Tesla already had to upgrade its onboard computer and cameras in earlier vehicles, and it has yet to achieve self-driving capability. Its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software is still in beta and doesn’t enable fully autonomous driving.

The automaker not only had to upgrade its hardware in some cases, but it even removed some hardware. First, it was the front-facing radar and more recently the ultrasonic sensors. . . .

The company removed the radars on its vehicles last year and the ultrasonic sensors earlier this year.

That’s why it was surprising earlier this year when we reported on Tesla filing with the FCC to use a new radar in its vehicles. The FCC had granted a confidential treatment to Tesla in order not to release the details of the new radar. . . .

In the request, Tesla confirms that it plans to start marketing the new device in “mid-January.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Electrek in June of last year after Tesla stopped using its radar:

The probability of safety will be higher with pure vision than vision+radar, not lower. Vision has become so good that radar actually reduces signal/noise.

However, the CEO also added that Tesla might still use radar if it had a “very high-resolution radar”:

A very high resolution radar would be better than pure vision, but such a radar does not exist. I mean vision with high res radar would be better than pure vision.

We saw some indications of Tesla working on that. We previously reported on Tesla looking to add a new “4D” imaging radar with twice the range of its previous radar. . . .

Tesla was always going to keep improving its Autopilot/self-driving hardware so there’s nothing wrong with what’s happening, but it still feeds into the growing concerns that Tesla can’t achieve its promised self-driving capability with the current hardware.

So there’s a possibility that Tesla is going to unveil a new suite of self-driving hardware next month that just improves the capability and Tesla still plans to deliver self-driving on the current hardware.

But I think there’s room for concerns after Tesla has been wrong about self-driving several times already. It might be wrong about the current vehicles being able to achieve it.
 
For those planning to be in So Cal before Oct 22, 2023, if you like car museums, I think Tesla fanboys would like or love https://www.petersen.org/tesla. I was at the museum Tuesday (I'm in So Cal for a vacation) and didn't know this exhibit would be there. It occupies an entire gallery on the 1st floor.

https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/tesla-retrospective-revisits-elon-musk-the-stable-genius/ that I just skimmed lists some items that are there. There was a looping video showing each of Tesla's plants, what they produce, some stats/claims about them, etc.

No idea if Tesla paid anything to have this spot but it sure feels like marketing to me...
 
cwerdna said:
For those planning to be in So Cal before Oct 22, 2023, if you like car museums, I think Tesla fanboys would like or love https://www.petersen.org/tesla. I was at the museum Tuesday (I'm in So Cal for a vacation) and didn't know this exhibit would be there. It occupies an entire gallery on the 1st floor.

https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/tesla-retrospective-revisits-elon-musk-the-stable-genius/ that I just skimmed lists some items that are there. There was a looping video showing each of Tesla's plants, what they produce, some stats/claims about them, etc.

No idea if Tesla paid anything to have this spot but it sure feels like marketing to me...

https://youtu.be/xTH3Nm_Ca1g

some glimpses of the displays....
 
Tesla has been bombarding me with adds over the past couple weeks, primarily on YouTube. Nearly every 3rd add is a Tesla ad now talking about the engineering advantages of Tesla. Is this happening to anyone else?
No Tesla adds on YouTube, but I have been getting regular e-mails offering to carry over my free supercharging and/or my FSD and/or no charge for optional paint color if I buy a new Tesla by March 31. Tesla must be pushing hard to meet sales expectations for the quarter.
 
No Tesla adds on YouTube, but I have been getting regular e-mails offering to carry over my free supercharging and/or my FSD and/or no charge for optional paint color if I buy a new Tesla by March 31. Tesla must be pushing hard to meet sales expectations for the quarter.
"
Tesla must be pushing hard to meet sales expectations for the quarter." As ever...
 
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