Is Tesla selling “Full Self Driving” shady?

[undercover]

I am one of the biggest proponents of futurology and believing in a technologically advanced future. I’m very optimistic that we will for sure have things like self driving cars eventually.

But a part of me also finds the fact that Tesla currently sells a “full self driving” option through their app to be a little...baity if not scammy. Of course they caveat this by listing the car’s actual current capabilities, but these features don’t at all add up to what a true “full self driving” car actually is in terms of what anyone reading “full self driving” would realistically and/or reasonably claim to be.

Even “autopilot” is a bit of a misnomer, but it’s not nearly as terrible as an offender as selling something that doesn’t currently exist.

They claim that all the hardware necessary for full self driving is already there, but what good does that do when the software and regulatory approval are nowhere near ready? And I’m not comparing Tesla to your average Kickstarter campaign that over-promises and frequently under-delivers or never delivers but I still don’t see the point or value in paying for something that doesn’t exist, however much you want it to. It seems stupid. There are so many hurdles they still need to overcome that it could be a decade before “FSD” actually exists.

And then there’s the fact that Elon claims the price is going to keep going up on “FSD” until eventually it becomes unaffordable for most. The reality of that actually happening is about as unknown as to the actual release date of “FSD”. If anything it would seem to me irrelevant as to whether or not the price goes up because if his dream of a robo-taxi fleet comes into fruition then that will drive down the price of a trip in a car considerably since there will be many more ride sharing cars available at any given time so to actually own a car would make no sense anyway. And even if it is initially super expensive, we all know that self driving cars will become very normal pretty quick once they eventually arrive.

I just don’t buy the shady salesman tactics of “buy now before the price goes up!” Just feels off to me. Especially when the cost of technology only ever goes down.

Disclosure that I have no particular attachment to Tesla. I am a fan of Elon personally but I see no value for myself in buying a Tesla car. Still far too expensive and unnecessary for the purpose of getting from A to B. If you have money to blow, sure, but it’s still basically a novelty even though the future is definitely electric.

[sherr]

I am one of the biggest proponents of futurology and believing in a technologically advanced future. I’m very optimistic that we will for sure have things like self driving cars eventually.

But a part of me also finds the fact that Tesla currently sells a “full self driving” option through their app to be a little...baity if not scammy. Of course they caveat this by listing the car’s actual current capabilities, but these features don’t at all add up to what a true “full self driving” car actually is in terms of what anyone reading “full self driving” would realistically and/or reasonably claim to be.

Even “autopilot” is a bit of a misnomer, but it’s not nearly as terrible as an offender as selling something that doesn’t currently exist.

They claim that all the hardware necessary for full self driving is already there, but what good does that do when the software and regulatory approval are nowhere near ready? And I’m not comparing Tesla to your average Kickstarter campaign that over-promises and frequently under-delivers or never delivers but I still don’t see the point or value in paying for something that doesn’t exist, however much you want it to. It seems stupid. There are so many hurdles they still need to overcome that it could be a decade before “FSD” actually exists.

And then there’s the fact that Elon claims the price is going to keep going up on “FSD” until eventually it becomes unaffordable for most. The reality of that actually happening is about as unknown as to the actual release date of “FSD”. If anything it would seem to me irrelevant as to whether or not the price goes up because if his dream of a robo-taxi fleet comes into fruition then that will drive down the price of a trip in a car considerably since there will be many more ride sharing cars available at any given time so to actually own a car would make no sense anyway. And even if it is initially super expensive, we all know that self driving cars will become very normal pretty quick once they eventually arrive.

I just don’t buy the shady salesman tactics of “buy now before the price goes up!” Just feels off to me. Especially when the cost of technology only ever goes down.

I wish they had chosen different names, but no I don't think it's shady. "Full Self Driving" is a statement of intent, not current capability, which they are up-front about and which you yourself acknowledge.

And they have regularly increased the cost of Autopilot/FSD as the capabilities have improved, so no that's not merely theoretical. And it's not just a "buy now before the price goes up" scam, buying now also gives you the benefit of being able to use the incremental capability in the years between now and whenever FSD is fully implemented.

And people know all this before they buy the car / software upgrades. So no I don't think it's shady. It's perhaps not optimal, but there's no deception going on.

Disclosure that I have no particular attachment to Tesla. I am a fan of Elon personally but I see no value for myself in buying a Tesla car. Still far too expensive and unnecessary for the purpose of getting from A to B. If you have money to blow, sure, but it’s still basically a novelty even though the future is definitely electric.

It's a luxury vehicle for tech nerds. All luxury vehicles are too expensive and unnecessary for the purpose of getting from A to B, by definition.

[PDXTabs]

Musk said that it would be available my the end of 2019 if not sooner: source.

He's a full on scammer at this point in my mind and I won't buy his products.

[Paper Chaser]

100% misleading at best

Go to their flashy Autopilot webpage with lots of slick graphics: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

The primary focus is a 2 minute video (sped up) that shows a Tesla driving through a city or town. The driver never touches the wheel or the pedals. The video is sped up footage of what's probably more like a 10 minute drive in real time. So several miles, in something like 10 minutes, and zero input from the driver.

But if you read this text-based page: https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot

Tesla clearly says "Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment."

"While using Autopilot, it is your responsibility to stay alert, keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times and maintain control of your car. "

So at the very least, they're sending mixed signals to consumers. Marketing says "look what we can do!" but the legal department says "Hey, don't do what we just showed you we can do in our own marketing." And of course a skeptic could say that they're sending those mixed signals knowing full well that consumers will push the limits, and that Tesla is fine with that because it gets them more data to aid their quest to be the first fully self driving tech on the market. It's just another case of big tech using consumers as beta testers so they don't have to fund the research themselves.

Tesla could easily do an OTA update that required more supervision from the drivers. They could do the same thing and limit the use of the tech to pre-mapped areas so that the car has to react to fewer unknowns in real time. They do neither. Wonder why?

Autopilot's biggest advantage is that it's limitless to it's users right now. It's biggest drawback is that it's limitless to it's users right now. GM's Super Cruise, and Ford's upcoming tech seem like much more responsible applications of this tech.

Look at the safety records of Autopilot vs Super Cruise or other driver assist tech and it's not close. It's much, much easier to misuse or abuse Autopilot than other similar tech and that leads to serious flaws being tested in public. There are multiple cases of Autopilot failures contributing to accidents that a reasonably observant human wouldn't have gotten into. This is just the most recent:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1267304975069261824

[sherr]

100% misleading at best

Go to their flashy Autopilot webpage with lots of slick graphics: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

The primary focus is a 2 minute video (sped up) that shows a Tesla driving through a city or town. The driver never touches the wheel or the pedals. The video is sped up footage of what's probably more like a 10 minute drive in real time. So several miles, in something like 10 minutes, and zero input from the driver.

From the top of the page, even above the video:
"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time."

So at the very least, they're sending mixed signals to consumers. Marketing says "look what we can do!" but the legal department says "Hey, don't do what we just showed you we can do in our own marketing."

Right, as opposed to every other marketing/legal department in the world. This is absolutely marketing, I just don't see it as particularly deceptive marketing.

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

I think the disconnect is that what people are used to for other cars is that whatever you get right this second is what it's going to be like for the rest of the lifetime of the car, but for Teslas they are talking future improvements. How else are you supposed to talk about future self-driving?

[Paper Chaser]

100% misleading at best

Go to their flashy Autopilot webpage with lots of slick graphics: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

The primary focus is a 2 minute video (sped up) that shows a Tesla driving through a city or town. The driver never touches the wheel or the pedals. The video is sped up footage of what's probably more like a 10 minute drive in real time. So several miles, in something like 10 minutes, and zero input from the driver.

From the top of the page, even above the video:
"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time."

So at the very least, they're sending mixed signals to consumers. Marketing says "look what we can do!" but the legal department says "Hey, don't do what we just showed you we can do in our own marketing."

Right, as opposed to every other marketing/legal department in the world. This is absolutely marketing, I just don't see it as particularly deceptive marketing.

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

You have far more faith in typical consumers than I do. You think they're going to parse wording in a written paragraph, or immediately scroll to the video of the cool stuff? You think they're going to dig through a text-only, support webpage to find the things that the car company says they shouldn't do, or will they just jump in the car and start playing with it like they saw their favorite Youtuber/Insta celeb doing?

My overall point is that no other company is doing these things, even if they have similar capability. Every other company is doing more to prevent consumer misuse of the tech at the very real cost of taking more time/money to develop it privately rather than publicly. Tesla could've changed gears and required more driver input after the very first Autopilot wreck with an OTA update to every Tesla. There have now been several more Autopilot accidents, some fatal and they still haven't addressed the issue to the extent that other car manufactures have from the start. They're sacrificing public safety to chase the autonomy cash cow much more than anybody else is doing.

[sherr]

100% misleading at best

Go to their flashy Autopilot webpage with lots of slick graphics: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

The primary focus is a 2 minute video (sped up) that shows a Tesla driving through a city or town. The driver never touches the wheel or the pedals. The video is sped up footage of what's probably more like a 10 minute drive in real time. So several miles, in something like 10 minutes, and zero input from the driver.

From the top of the page, even above the video:
"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time."

So at the very least, they're sending mixed signals to consumers. Marketing says "look what we can do!" but the legal department says "Hey, don't do what we just showed you we can do in our own marketing."

Right, as opposed to every other marketing/legal department in the world. This is absolutely marketing, I just don't see it as particularly deceptive marketing.

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

You have far more faith in typical consumers than I do. You think they're going to parse wording in a written paragraph, or immediately scroll to the video of the cool stuff? You think they're going to dig through a text-only, support webpage to find the things that the car company says they shouldn't do, or will they just jump in the car and start playing with it like they saw their favorite Youtuber/Insta celeb doing?

My overall point is that no other company is doing these things, even if they have similar capability. Every other company is doing more to prevent consumer misuse of the tech at the very real cost of taking more time/money to develop it privately rather than publicly. Tesla could've changed gears and required more driver input after the very first Autopilot wreck with an OTA update to every Tesla. There have now been several more Autopilot accidents, some fatal and they still haven't addressed the issue to the extent that other car manufactures have from the start. They're sacrificing public safety to chase the autonomy cash cow much more than anybody else is doing.

It's not buried in the support page. Other text from your linked landing page:
"Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

"The future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving capabilities are introduced, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates."

People are dumb and will ignore safety for cool, sure we agree. But there is no deceptive marketing going on here, everything is very clearly spelled out.

As for your other point about them being too aggressive and not weighing public safety high enough, sure that's been a common criticism of Tesla for years and I don't necessarily disagree. But that's also irrelevant to OP's post.

[Paper Chaser]

The difference in the text you highlighted, and what I showed from the support page is the part about hands being required on the wheel. Your text doesn't mention it at all.

The flashy marketing page with the video where the driver doesn't come close to touching the pedals or the wheel, says nothing about needing to keep hands on the wheel.
But the boring, text-only support page mentions it twice:

"Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment."

"While using Autopilot, it is your responsibility to stay alert, keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times and maintain control of your car. "

As for the rushing tech into public use, I'd qualify that as "shady" which would definitely fall into the realm of the OP. The fact that no other automakers are doing the same thing, while selling some similar products, tells me there are some ethical and/or legal issues and Tesla is the only one that continues to put it out there.

[ketchup]

Meh, I don't mind it.  He's offering early access to their "self driving" capabilities as they're developed, and in return you get to be a guinea pig and pay less upfront than you would later for the final product.  Claiming all the hardware needed is there already seems a bit brash, but they know more about that than I do.

Most Tesla fans are interested in the bleeding-edge anyway.

[Just Joe]

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

Sure they do. I know multiple people driving expensive vehicles with very little understand or desire to understand how the stereo works, how to the navigation works, how the AWD or safety systems work.

I would assume that Tesla attracts tech nerds like myself but I'm certain that there are also customers who buy Teslas b/c they are trendy.

I know someone who didn't want their passenger to touch all the tech stuff b/c the owner wouldn't know how to change anything back after the passenger was gone. So they drove their tech deluxe vehicle with most everything in the default settings.

[sherr]

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

Sure they do. I know multiple people driving expensive vehicles with very little understand or desire to understand how the stereo works, how to the navigation works, how the AWD or safety systems work.

I would assume that Tesla attracts tech nerds like myself but I'm certain that there are also customers who buy Teslas b/c they are trendy.

I know someone who didn't want their passenger to touch all the tech stuff b/c the owner wouldn't know how to change anything back after the passenger was gone. So they drove their tech deluxe vehicle with most everything in the default settings.

The guy I was responding to was claiming that there was dishonest advertising going on, because a video that explicitly says it's showing conceptual future self-driving doesn't have the driver's hands on the wheel while the car today requires you to. I just... am not bothered by that.

If you're worried about actual owners not knowing that they are responsible for driving the car at all times and that they have to keep your hands on the wheel, let me reassure you that's not feasible. First of all, it's all opt-in, which means the "drive on default and never change anything" people won't ever be able to use the autopilot features anyway. Even if you never read the on-screen in-car help where all this is clearly spelled out, every time you enable one of the autopilot features a giant warning pops up that you are forced to acknowledge that tells you so, explicitly. And the car does force you to keep your hands on the wheel. If you don't it'll start obnoxiously alarming at you, and then disables the autopilot for the remainder of the trip. The people that are the real problem cases that get themselves or others killed are the ones who intentionally go out of their way to defeat that safety mechanism, by attaching a weight to the steering wheel or something.

So our range of concern seems to be restricted to "casual/impulse buyers who buy the car because its cool and then can't figure out why it's not chauffeuring them around". If such people exist, I would simply expect them to make use of Tesla's no-questions-asked 7-day return policy.

I love my car but I'm not a Musk fanboy. But I... just do not see anything deceptive about the FSD marketing. At least insomuch as every other marketing campaign is exactly as "optimistic", from nicer-than-reality Big Macs on up.

[Paper Chaser]

The guy I was responding to was claiming that there was dishonest advertising going on, because a video that explicitly says it's showing conceptual future self-driving doesn't have the driver's hands on the wheel while the car today requires you to. I just... am not bothered by that.

I'm not sure I said dishonest. But I do think it's worth discussing how there's at least some conflicting messaging going on here in a thread about whether Tesla offering their Autopilot is "Shady" or not.

Every other automaker and tech company that's working on this type of tech has more constraints to avoid misuse or abuse by consumers than Tesla has. That's by choice. Tesla could easily add constraints to bring their safety to near the level of the other players with an OTA software update (and preferrably additional hardware on future models) but they haven't done that. I think it's worth asking why. High profile incidents related to Autopilot only hurt public perception of this tech and raise the likelihood of legal issues, federal investigations, etc.

[Roland of Gilead]

For about 70? years cars have been advertising on their speedometer that they can go above 100mph when there are few if any places that allow you to go that fast.  Shady?

[lemonlyman]

Not shady. It's like Kickstarter. FSD is a brand/promise and Tesla only recognizes income for features already delivered. The rest of the money from FSD purchases is booked as deferred revenue. If they weren't constantly adding features or upgrading older cars to new hardware, it would be shady. Cars several years old can recognize and respond to stop signs and stop lights now with new hardware. That's awesome.

Only raising prices after quarter end for the purpose of improving the previous quarter's results instead of raising the price as value increases: shady.

[sherr]

Only raising prices after quarter end for the purpose of improving the previous quarter's results instead of raising the price as value increases: shady.

That's funny, I think that's far less shady that the "optimistic advertising" which I also (as is clear above) do not think is shady. What a company sets their prices at is simply a function of where they think they can get the most profit, whether by getting more people to buy at a lower price or getting fewer people to buy at a higher price. There is no shadiness involved in keeping the price lower through the end of the quarter if they think they can maximize their profit that way.

They increase the price as they add more features because they think they can, not because there's some rule about being required to.

[ketchup]

Only raising prices after quarter end for the purpose of improving the previous quarter's results instead of raising the price as value increases: shady.

That's funny, I think that's far less shady that the "optimistic advertising" which I also (as is clear above) do not think is shady. What a company sets their prices at is simply a function of where they think they can get the most profit, whether by getting more people to buy at a lower price or getting fewer people to buy at a higher price. There is no shadiness involved in keeping the price lower through the end of the quarter if they think they can maximize their profit that way.

They increase the price as they add more features because they think they can, not because there's some rule about being required to.

I'll take any WYSIWYG pricing over the "dealer model" of smoke and mirrors bullshit numbers which is the status quo for some reason.

[sherr]

I'll take any WYSIWYG pricing over the "dealer model" of smoke and mirrors bullshit numbers which is the status quo for some reason.

Some of the smoke and mirrors still exist. I think I paid ~$1000 in "destination and document" fees, and then you still have whatever your state's registration fees and taxes are. But that seems to be universal in the auto industry, not unique to Tesla.

But given the article I saw the other day about how some dealerships were marking up the new electric Mustang by 15 grand and expecting people to negotiate them down... yeah Tesla is a wonderful and consumer-friendly buying experience in comparison.

[big_owl]

100% misleading at best

Go to their flashy Autopilot webpage with lots of slick graphics: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

The primary focus is a 2 minute video (sped up) that shows a Tesla driving through a city or town. The driver never touches the wheel or the pedals. The video is sped up footage of what's probably more like a 10 minute drive in real time. So several miles, in something like 10 minutes, and zero input from the driver.

From the top of the page, even above the video:
"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time."

So at the very least, they're sending mixed signals to consumers. Marketing says "look what we can do!" but the legal department says "Hey, don't do what we just showed you we can do in our own marketing."

Right, as opposed to every other marketing/legal department in the world. This is absolutely marketing, I just don't see it as particularly deceptive marketing.

No one buys a $50k car without actually reading the web page to see what its capabilities are, and the text is very clear, as your own quotes demonstrate.

You have far more faith in typical consumers than I do. You think they're going to parse wording in a written paragraph, or immediately scroll to the video of the cool stuff? You think they're going to dig through a text-only, support webpage to find the things that the car company says they shouldn't do, or will they just jump in the car and start playing with it like they saw their favorite Youtuber/Insta celeb doing?

My overall point is that no other company is doing these things, even if they have similar capability. Every other company is doing more to prevent consumer misuse of the tech at the very real cost of taking more time/money to develop it privately rather than publicly. Tesla could've changed gears and required more driver input after the very first Autopilot wreck with an OTA update to every Tesla. There have now been several more Autopilot accidents, some fatal and they still haven't addressed the issue to the extent that other car manufactures have from the start. They're sacrificing public safety to chase the autonomy cash cow much more than anybody else is doing.

It's not buried in the support page. Other text from your linked landing page:
"Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

"The future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving capabilities are introduced, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates."

People are dumb and will ignore safety for cool, sure we agree. But there is no deceptive marketing going on here, everything is very clearly spelled out.

As for your other point about them being too aggressive and not weighing public safety high enough, sure that's been a common criticism of Tesla for years and I don't necessarily disagree. But that's also irrelevant to OP's post.

For me the rub is when exactly the future he's talking about becomes reality. I have stood, and still stand by that FSD is way further into the future than your average person thinks and Musk likes to elude to . And by the time it happens most people buying a Tesla today will be riding in something else.

[DarkandStormy]

Peep the dates on all of these:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920
According to Musk, by 2018 Teslas should have been able to drive themselves across the country (charging included, I assume?).

https://fortune.com/2015/12/21/elon-musk-interview/
Late in 2015, Musk said Teslas would drive themselves within two years.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1126611407984779264
In May 2019, Musk said they would "game" the NY to LA trip he mentioned and that every vehicle with FSD would be able to complete it as well (it didn't happen).

https://apnews.com/09894dee68d7496399f176a77a8bc98d
Last April, Musk predicted that the technology for "fully self-driving Tesla" would roll out in Q2 2020.  Has that happened?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/866482406160609280
Here is Musk saying by the end of 2017 they would be able to demo a "coast to coast" trip driven fully by the car.  Never happened.

We are constantly in a "one to two years out" timeframe on this pipe dream.  Musk is really good - at being a snake oil salesman.