Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims

https://www.reuters.com/legal/exclusive-tesla-faces-us-criminal-probe-over-self-driving-claims-sources-2022-10-26/

by brandall10 • 4 years ago

452 440 4 years ago

VagueMag4• 4 years ago

The Justice Department’s Autopilot probe is far from recommending any action partly because it is competing with two other DOJ investigations involving Tesla one of the sources said. Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on charges is imminent this source said.

This is definitely a thing that happens. If you are ever doing crimes, just be sure to commit a whole bunch of them so the DOJ has to move more slowly. It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of thing.

leroman• 4 years ago

I propose to call this kind of attack LAPA ("Legal Analysis Paralysis Attack")

VagueMag4• 4 years ago

I think it's "No One Wants To Be the Pin That Pricks the Overinflated Tesla Stock Bubble" paralysis.

klyrs7• 4 years ago

Watching Trump do the same, I've taken to calling it the Montgomery Burns Defense (canonically known as Three Stooges Syndrome in the Simpsons episode, apparently)

8ytecoder• 4 years ago

And do it openly and in public.

ramesh313• 4 years ago

And do it openly and in public.

And make sure the figures involved are not below 9 digits. That way, when you get your two year (6 months with good behavior) white collar slap on the wrist, your French Chateau will still be waiting, and you can laugh at the guy who's doing a decade for bouncing a $200 check on the way out.

dragonwriter• 4 years ago

It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of thing.

It’s actually a 5th Amendment (double-jeopardy) thing; prosecuting a subset of crimes from a single course of conduct may preclude prosecuting others depending on their relationship, so it becomes important to fully investigate before prosecution.

lazide2• 4 years ago

In this case I suspect it’s also a ‘Elon musk has too many lawyers and is acquiring a company that “buys ink by the barrel”’ problem too.

Everyone involved is going to be very careful to not end up personally targeted or liable, and that nothing done could be twisted to make themselves or the administration look like idiots.

It’s a big part of why ‘the rich don’t have consequences’, as is the current fashion to say - they can defend themselves against all but the most careful prosecutions, and can afford to hire people to make sure their asses are covered (if they think to do so).

As to if Elon actually did cover his ass here is yet to be determined. I think he probably didn’t sufficiently, but can muddy the waters enough to not go to prison, and would just have to shell out some money in a decade or so to fines or civil suits.

Only time will tell!

cal5k• 4 years ago

Musk is an outspoken critic of the current administration. Given what we've seen from the Justice Department over the last few years, does it not seem highly likely that this is politically-motivated?

vlovich123• 4 years ago

Or the current administration is trying to have regulators and prosecutors start to go after malfeasance and Musk is criticizing the administration because he’s got a lot that he can be prosecuted for.

Isn’t it fun how wild, unsubstantiated, paranoid speculation can cut both ways?

VagueMag4• 4 years ago

Musk has actually been treated with an incredibly light touch given the number of people who have been maimed and killed by Teslas running Autopilot. If this Administration was truly antagonistic to Musk, there are dozens of things they could be doing to create problems for him and his companies. They're not.

woeirua6• 4 years ago

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Tesla the electric car company is doing great. Tesla the FSD tech unicorn, is going to end in tears. I will not be surprised at all when some of the engineers on the AI team go to jail over this. Why the engineers? Because the executives almost always are able to afford high powered lawyers to avoid any serious consequences.

dheera3• 4 years ago

Really, it's the shareholders that should go to jail over this for threatening to short Tesla stock if they don't deliver at every quarterly earnings. They are the ultimate root cause of Tesla's behavior around FSD.

If shareholders collectively promise and agree to hold Tesla stock and upvote it for a 5-10 year period it would give Tesla the space and time they need to develop FSD safely.

As long as they're at the mercy of ruthless quarterly free market capitalism, safety will go to shit. Same thing with Boeing.

DontchaKnowit2• 4 years ago

And upvote it? Wtf are you talking about

woeirua6• 4 years ago

You can't be serious. The shareholders demand returns, but the EV side of the company already has been successful enough to keep them placated. No one forced Musk to go out there and repeatedly claim that Telsa's would be able to be used as robotaxis, or that you'd be able to drive across country with no hands. He's still out there making these outlandish claims! At some point, the music is going to stop.

kube-system2• 4 years ago

This investigation is about statements made about the car's capabilities, not an issue with the capability itself. This is squarely on their marketing and executive teams.

In fact, some of their other departments are notable for contradicting the lofty claims of their marketing.

woeirua6• 4 years ago

When the shit starts flying, the execs and marketing team are absolutely going to throw the engineers under the bus. "We were just repeating what we were told by the engineers." "We didn't know any better."

It happens every time. The best defense for the engineers is to have thoroughly documented the limitations of the system.

aeternum• 4 years ago

This is an outlandish claim and needless fearmongering. Why stop at Tesla, should Meta/Twitter engineers also go to jail for their role in building platforms that can be used to incite violence? Boeing engineers for the 737 Max? Toyota engineers for the stuck accelerator issues?

woeirua6• 4 years ago

You might have missed when the DOJ indicted the Chief Technical Pilot for the 737 Max as a result of the crashes [1].

BTW, he was later acquitted by a jury.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-boeing-737-max-chief-t...

nomel• 4 years ago

I think the last two could easily be a “yes” if failing safety tests were signed off by those engineers.

tomjakubowski• 4 years ago

I don't think OP ever said they should face charges, only that they probably will.

giraffe_lady• 4 years ago

In absolute seriousness: yes they should.

iancmceachern• 4 years ago

This happened with that whole GM ignition switch thing

Edited to add this link https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/busi...

perihelions• 4 years ago

- "The Justice Department’s Autopilot probe is far from recommending any action partly because it is competing with two other DOJ investigations involving Tesla, one of the sources said. Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on charges is imminent, this source said."

- "The Justice Department may also face challenges in building its case, said the sources, because of Tesla’s warnings about overreliance on Autopilot."

How often do criminal defendants get to read the internal deliberations of their prosecuting office, and before they're even charged?

What a dysfunctional mess. This leak was unethical, unlawful, and unworthy of the gravitas of an office whose work puts people in prison.

tptacek6• 4 years ago

If I search the NYT from 1990 to 2010 for "DOJ" "charges imminent", I get >2000 results. There's nothing happening with respect to Tesla here that doesn't happen all the time. DOJ is a big organization; it has 100,000 employees. We just notice this stuff when it intersects people and companies we have a rooting interest (one way or the other) in.

londons_explore• 4 years ago

How often do criminal defendants get to read the internal deliberations of their prosecuting office, and before they're even charged?

There's really no reason this info should be secret. If you can provide extra info to persuade them not to charge you, then all the better - time saved for both parties.

maxbond• 4 years ago

It's entirely possible DOJ decided this was a good time to leak this information. For instance, just spitballing, they might be saying, "hey, we're going to bring charges, but not for a while, and we want to tell investors ahead of time so that the news causes less volatility, and the volatility will be better isolated to just Tesla."

No real way to know from the outside, unless they bring charges against a leaker.

treis2• 4 years ago

I always thought the Autopilot name and the claims about having all the equipment for FSD were basically fraudulent and Tesla would be liable for false advertisement. Never made the connection of Fraud => Someone driving negligent as a result => Negligent Homicide/Manslaughter but it seems solid and somewhat obvious once stated.

Symmetry• 4 years ago

I've generally always considered level 2 or 3 autonomy to be a recipe for disaster, humans can't be expected to remain alert and respond quickly when they aren't doing anything. But at the same time the way Tesla autopilot woks is congruent to autopilots on boats or airplanes. Those won't avoid other vehicles and are usually perfectly happy to let you crash into shoals or mountains.

ht85• 4 years ago

Taking human nature into account has driven so much progress in terms of road safety.

Cue corporation selling you "Full Self Driving" for 5 figures, allowing your vehicle to become autonomous. Except you have to be alert and behave as if it wasn't. At all times. Of course.

sidewndr462• 4 years ago

I'm not sure if you're being serious, but the way "autopilot" works in a private yacht is the captain turns it on and goes below deck and gets drunk with the rest of the crew. It just maintains a heading towards a destination at that point.

You learn very quickly on the water to get out of the way of large private yachts when in open waters. There is literally no one at the helm. Even if they did notice you, they aren't in a position to halt the boats travel.

treis2• 4 years ago

If anything this just cements why they shouldn't have called it autopilot in the first place.

mrtksn• 4 years ago

We have a small and cheap Japanese car that features adaptive cruise control and line assist that works pretty alright. So it’s essentially like line following robot that can adjust its speed to keep a safe following distance and do hard breaking if needed.

It’s feels almost like full self driving when you drive on the highway.

It makes the ride significantly less tiresome but I would say it definitely reduces my attention.

I can totally see how people with more capable systems may treat the car as intelligent enough to drive %100 by itself and became negligent.

GuB-42• 4 years ago

One significant difference between Autopilot in Teslas and autopilots in airplanes is that in an airplane you typically have to prove that you can use the autopilot correctly in order to be allowed to fly that plane.

Another difference is that piloting a boat or a plane is usually much less dependent on quick reactions than when you are driving a car. The skies and seas are much more open, with much less traffic than on the road. On a well trimmed plane, I could probably sleep for 10 minutes and there is a good chance nothing will happen. Obviously, it is excessively dangerous, but I am not almost guaranteed to crash as I would be on a car. Flying or sailing is more about precision and planning than it is about reacting.

davewritescode2• 4 years ago

Just want to chime in and say that I completely agree. From a technology perspective it’s interesting, from a human factors perspective it’s a complete disaster.

Automating the easiest parts of driving and just expecting a human to jump in and figure out the tricky stuff in an instant is just such a horrible design that it’s hard to see how it’s gone this far.

WWLink• 4 years ago

I always thought the Autopilot name and the claims about having all the equipment for FSD were basically fraudulent and Tesla would be liable for false advertisement

Same. I thought they'd get slapped hard and forced to stop doing that YEARS AGO.

Instead they doubled down and started selling "full self driving"

lmao.

tenpies2• 4 years ago

The whole Musk saga is basically a cautionary tale for regulators, and a classic American story of regulatory capture.

The second something that's not autopilot was marketed as autopilot should have been an instant barrage from the FTC.

The second Musk committed securities fraud for "funding secured" he should have been banned from ever being an officer or director in a publicly listed company.

The second it became clear that Tesla was ignoring the requirement to have a Twitter Nanny on Musk's Twitter, the SEC should have obliterated the Tesla board.

But this is the post-Obama US, where insider trading is fine as long as it's the Right People doing it. Where bankers and investors can take obscene and reckless risk knowing the tax payer will cover their loses. Where a President's son can openly try to sell influence - who knows with what degree of success - and the intelligence agencies won't move a finger. So the Musk saga makes perfect sense.

sedatk2• 4 years ago

That's what I thought too, but interestingly, autopilot is mere cruise control for airplanes. It can't take off or land the plane, it doesn't change course. It's definitely not "self-flying". But somehow, the term "autopilot" for cars made me think that the car would drive itself. That's an interesting twist of perception.

jrochkind1• 4 years ago

Tesla apparently also uses the phrase “Full Self-Driving”?

I don't think the claims are solely about the name "autopilot", but additional names and marketing.

ethanbond2• 4 years ago

I'm pretty sure autopilot in planes can land them. They don't do this because they need pilots to be trained in how to land them in the event of autopilot failure. I know for a fact there are non-commercial planes, for example, that will detect pilot incapacitation, find the nearest airport, account for local weather, talk to ATC, and land the aircraft.

base698• 4 years ago

Autopilot in planes does change course. In GA it's called GPSS steering and a lot of planes have it. I believe jet planes have more sophisticated autopilot that can change when ATC gives a new heading.

slavik81• 4 years ago

That's how it used to be. In the past, "autopilot" was used by laymen to describe a vehicle control system that could safely drive itself (in contrast to cruise control, which was more limited). For example, in the punchline to this chain letter from 1993:

[A man] was driving along in his motor home. He turned on his ‘cruise control’. Apparently misunderstanding the function of ‘cruise control’, he then went into the back of the motor home. The motor home drove off the road and crashed. Apparently he did not realize that ‘cruise control’ is not ‘autopilot.’

This story is apocryphal, but it illustrates that the popular understanding of 'autopilot' for road vehicles was full self-driving.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cruise-uncontrol/

nixass2• 4 years ago

Will they finally be forced to name it adaptive cruise control, as it should've been from beginning?

twblalock9• 4 years ago

No, because "adaptive cruise control" is a different thing that all Teslas have already. It simply refers to cruise control that will slow down if the car in front of you does. All Teslas have that for free, and it's been an industry standard term for at least 20 years. Even cheap cars have adaptive cruise control these days.

The self-driving feature also steers the car, stops at signals and stop signs, merges onto the freeway, etc. Those are all things that adaptive cruise control does not do.

concinds2• 4 years ago

This comment is highly misleading; the DoJ probe centers on fraud and "misleading consumers, investors and regulators". It has nothing whatsoever to do with manslaughter, and Reuters never even hinted at this.

ramesh313• 4 years ago

Autopilot is a fantastic, world leading technology. But the marketing of it was (and continues to be) nothing short of criminally negligent. There are over a dozen confirmed deaths at this point, directly attributable to the outright lies spewed by Elon and co. regarding its' capabilities.

We were able to ban lawn darts in the 80s because of a few isolated incidents. But the state of affairs we are in now is only possible due to the absurd level of regulatory capture we've reached in this country. I don't expect anything to change at this point.

adam_arthur• 4 years ago

I wouldn’t even call it regulatory capture. More of a conflict of interest by lawmakers holding specific company stock.

No lobbying needed

concordDance4• 4 years ago

There are over a dozen confirmed deaths at this point, directly attributable to the outright lies spewed by Elon and co. regarding its' capabilities.

Got a link to a list?

The few cases I've investigated turned out either not to have it enabled or were cases of serious negligence on behalf of the driver.

Also, they get a user manual they need to read/click through before they're allowed to use the autopilot.

ramesh313• 4 years ago

Got a link to a list?

There's been 10 just this year: https://fortune.com/2022/10/19/tesla-cars-involved-in-10-of-...

masswerk• 4 years ago

There's a Google Sheet for this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6...

m4635• 4 years ago

plenty of information here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#NHTSA_investig...

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Notable_crashe...

threeseed2• 4 years ago

Autopilot is a fantastic, world leading technology

Is it ?

This basic lane assist type functionality is available in almost every new car today.

speedgoose3• 4 years ago

I understand your point but I want to say that Autopilot works better than basic lane assist you find in many new cars today.

hellomyguys• 4 years ago

Honestly surprised any of this made it past the legal department at Tesla. Any company I've worked at has always been super careful and conservative with the language you use to describe anything.

izzydata• 4 years ago

You can't sell lies if you only tell the truth.

B1FF_PSUVM• 4 years ago

Sadly a misperception.

Modern masters deceive you with the truth - carefully selected facts, but true. Or close enough for legal purposes.

tptacek6• 4 years ago

This is Tesla, a company that managed to randomly announce that it intended to take itself private, on Twitter.

xen2xen1• 4 years ago

And probably included a pot joke.

tenpies2• 4 years ago

"managed to randomly announce" is a very odd way of saying "the CEO committed securities fraud because bankruptcy was imminent and his entire net worth was sunk into the company".

colejohnson66• 4 years ago

Because the legal departments don't have veto power on anything. In-house counsel is just that - counsel, but in-house instead of some outside firm. Managers are free to ignore anything their lawyers say, just as you can ignore anything your lawyers say.

The lawyers will cover themselves by writing memos about how they "informed the client to not do thing X, but they indicated that they don't care," but because those are work product, they're confidential. They're only for future malpractice suits, should they come.

saalweachter• 4 years ago

I'd phrase that as legal departments don't have veto power on anything unless management gives it to them.

If I -- Minion #64752 in BigCorp -- run my ad copy by legal and they strike it all as a legal hazard, but I run the ad anyway, my boss -- Low-Level Manager #11235 -- is going to fire me the next day, and hope that keeps his boss -- Mid-Level Manager #3142 -- from doing the same to him.

If legal doesn't have veto power on ad copy, it's because the management hasn't given it to them, or because management is making the decision to disregard legal's advice.

loeg2• 4 years ago

Musk doesn't listen to legal.

beeboop• 4 years ago

Do you work in the legal department at Tesla?

klyrs7• 4 years ago

Musk wants to run a conservative Tesla. Only, the meaning of "conservative" has drifted a long way from how you're using it here.

_ph_• 4 years ago

Or actuall Tesla has a great legal department. I am definitely not happy how they pitch Autopilot/FSD, but if you check all the wording, the small print, carefully, there are no fraudulent claims.

medler• 4 years ago

Their legal team has reportedly had some issues of late: “At least a dozen company lawyers have left their posts this year, according to three people familiar with Tesla’s operations. They include some attorneys who worked in business units outside of legal, including human resources and tax, the people said. The company has no lawyer or legal chief listed among its three top executives and has been without a permanent general counsel since December 2019.” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/tesla-la...

parkingrift3• 4 years ago

That’s not how “legal departments” work. You don’t have to “run it by legal” to get approval. You do that to understand potential legal risks and then you make a business decision. Legal doesn’t run the business unless you’ve explicitly set up the business that way.

Tesla likely has a complete understanding of all the possible legal outcomes. At present Tesla isn’t actually facing ANY criminal charges. They are being investigated, but that investigation has been ongoing for more than a year. This very article cites Tesla marketing and usage language which complicates any potential DOJ case.

DarkmSparks6• 4 years ago

While I understand the motivations for the investigation, and fully agree its an investigation worth conducting.

I dont think it actually has merit, at least not in the terms framed by the article.

In most circumstances it "probably is better than a human driver", not all circumstances, and not proven (hence probably).

But if LM can push the F35 as the best jet ever while it racks up a wreckage count to make the 737 Max jealous, claims made by Tesla arent even in the same ballpark....

It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not perfected yet"

bigmattystyles• 4 years ago

I know it's on top of mind when I'm commuting in my F35. /s

Comparing a military jet which operation requires thousands of hours of training just to get off the ground compared to a mass produced vehicle is not a valid comparison, at least in my mind. Plus what LM pushes to its stockholders is definitely not as comprehensive as the Pentagon gets.

DarkmSparks6• 4 years ago

They promised full autonomy for the F35

And supersonic flight.

Its just its been held up by the small detail that the airframe keeps making huge holes in the ground every few weeks.

ModernMech• 4 years ago

It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not perfected yet"

We can still have self driving cars, but they should be developed within a culture that values safety. Tesla is not such a culture. We know this because after the first accident that resulted in decapitation, Tesla collectively shrugged and made the problem worse by removing sensors, which predictably resulted in a second decapitation. They collectively shrugged after that one as well, and again made the problem worse by removing more sensors.

Tesla does not value safety, and their YOLO attitude toward driverless cars, in which the general public is forced to participate in their beta test whether we like it or not, is holding the driverless car industry back. They are not friends of the cause, and the sooner they are prevented from running beta tests on the general public (which have caused deaths), the sooner the industry as a whole can move forward. Reckless engineering by Tesla will not result in a net gain in safety for everyone. Safety is hard even when done intentionally, it won't be achieved as a second order effect of Tesla's "move fast and break things" ethos.

ajross4• 4 years ago

Tesla does not value safety

This is a weird framing. Are Teslas unsafe? Either they are or they aren't, right? Are other cultures that "value" safety producing safer cars? If they're not, does that say anything about the value of "values"? What's the goal here, values or safety?

ckw• 4 years ago

If Tesla doesn’t have a culture that values safety, why are their vehicles safer in crashes than all other comparable vehicles?

cbeach2• 4 years ago

What they’re doing by removing different types of sensor is -simplifying- the Tesla system design and bringing it closer to human senses (ie eyesight alone).

Apparently Hacker News thinks humans are safer than Autopilot. So why wouldn’t we advocate a highly advanced vision-based model in cars, rather than a complex, awkwardly synchronised fusion of different classes of sensor?

Take LiDAR, for example. Some claim it’s superior to Tesla’s vision sensors. But LiDAR can’t detect colour, so how will it read traffic lights? Its model of the world will have to be synced up to a camera vision-based model of the world. Syncing two 3D (4D in fact) models precisely is a pretty tough problem to solve. Complexity becomes a risk in its own right.

ajross4• 4 years ago

In most circumstances it "probably is better than a human driver", not all circumstances, and not proven (hence probably).

That's the core issue here, really. Is autopilot more or less safe than a human driver? If it is, then it's hard to see how there's any criminal liability here. (And "fraud" judgements over "the car doesn't really drive itself" would be limited to a refunded purchase price on vehicles that sell used higher than their sticker price).

And... is it less safe? Tesla publishes their own data saying not only is it safe, it's MUCH safer. Every time the subject comes up, people show up to whatabout and explain how that's not a good data set. But does anyone have a better one? Does the DoJ?

I was making this point last year when there were half as many Teslas on the roads: there are millions of these cars now, and every one has autopilot[1]. Any notable safety data would be glowing like hot plutonium if it existed. It probably doesn't exist. Teslas seem to be safe; they're almost certainly safer than the median vehicle.

[1] The headline obscures it, but the text makes clear the investigation is about the Autopilot product, not anything branded FSD.

DarkmSparks6• 4 years ago

Exactly why I think the investigation is justified even though I believe they are safer than cars without Teslas autopilot.

There is a risk Tesla is hiding data, if they are the investigation should surely find it - if not then those hating on the autopilot can cry into their caramel lattes while we move step by step closer to being able to nap in the backseat while travelling alone cross country.

klyrs7• 4 years ago

It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not perfected yet"

It would be. But there's no misunderstanding here. Tesla continues to misrepresent their self driving capabilities in marketing materials, after years of feedback that tech hasn't caught up to the promises. If Tesla's profit-seeking dishonesty were to undermine the entire industry, that would be a shame.

"It would be a real shame if this snake oil were banned before we had a chance to figure out what it can cure" might be a better framing.

DarkmSparks6• 4 years ago

What promise do you think they have abandoned?

parkingrift3• 4 years ago

Can you cite an example of an obviously misleading claim in Tesla marketing materials? People keep making these claims as if they are inherent and obvious truths. From my browsing of the Tesla site it does not seem misleading at all.

wilg13• 4 years ago

I don't understand why Elon claiming that the cars will be able to drive themselves in the future could be considered any kind of crime? I don't think Tesla has ever said "hey you can get in the car today and it is fully autonomous". They've just said that's what they will do in the future. They've also shown and talked about products in-development.

You might think they are full of shit about whether it will ever be delivered, which is a fair argument, but that's much different than lying about the actual product in people's hands.

AlexandrB4• 4 years ago

They allowed you to buy the "car can drive itself" capability and never fully delivered. It's not like this was just a promise, it was something you could pay for years ago.

wilg13• 4 years ago

Yeah, but that isn't a crime. You can pre-order things. They still claim they will deliver it. Seems like maybe you could do a class-action or something to get your money back, but not argue that actually it was reasonable to believe you already had it and therefore are not liable for a crash or whatever.

fasthands9• 4 years ago

Their marketing has lots of videos where they tout self-driving (calling it full self-driving or Autopilot) without any clarification it is a future promise. And then there is a feature on your Tesla called Autopilot you can click one

I know if you are in the weeds you know the capabilities - but I think most people get the impression it can drive itself and its safe. And that impression is a direct result from marketing materials. Given the severity of car accidents it seems reasonable to be strict on these marketing claims, even if they call it a "beta" in the fine-print.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlThdr3O5Qo

FireBeyond8• 4 years ago

without any clarification it is a future promise

and even then, oftentimes it's -very- strongly implied that if it's not really available now the only thing holding it back is regulators.

(Well, that's actually true in its own way, though not a good thing - I am certain that Elon would be yeeting all sorts of shit over the fence if the regulators let him, if only so Tesla could realize all manner of deferred income.)

klyrs7• 4 years ago

It's the claims he makes about the present that are a problem. Also, when he's selling "beta" access with the expectation that "release" access will be more expensive and a neverending promise of "this year" and "next year", that sounds like reasonably clear-cut fraud to me.

wilg13• 4 years ago

I am not sure there are any actual claims about the present that would lead a reasonable person to conclude their car currently has features that it does not.

I don't think it's anywhere near clear-cut fraud to say "you can pre-order this for a cheaper price" and to be wrong about your deadline estimates. Yes, if it never comes out or there is evidence they never even tried to make good on the offer, then you would be open to some kind of legal action. But clearly they are trying. If a bunch of owners want to try to argue that the timeline was promised and missed and do a class action to get their money back, that seems reasonable enough. But none of this seems to relate to actual safety issues or anything.

phire• 4 years ago

The probe isn't about the future "full self driving" product.

It's about the current "autopilot" product, or more importantly, the marketing around it. They are investigating if Tesla deliberately oversold the capabilities of autopilot, implying that can do far more than it actually can.

Basically: are Tesla criminally responsible for customers who misunderstood what autopilot was, and then didn't correctly supervise the autopilot and ended up in accidents?

Though the fact that Tesla/Musk were continually talking about the FSD features will play into the probe, but only because customers might have confused things said about the future FSD feature, for the capabilities of the current system. But only if Tesla deliberately encouraged or knew about this confusion (or should have known)

tptacek6• 4 years ago

If Tesla knowingly makes material false claims about what their cars can do, especially if they have internal evidence that people are using the feature dangerously in ways Tesla could have prevented, they're perpetrating fraud.

Most frauds are prosecuted in state court. There are several federal fraud statutes. For instance, wire fraud, which is any interstate fraud that uses telecommunications, has the following (paraphrased) predicates in the model jury instructions:

(1) You knowingly took part in a scheme to deceive people.

(2) The lies you told were material and caused people to spend money or give up property.

(3) You had an intent to cheat people out of money.

(4) You used some form of interstate telecommunications as part of the scheme.

Prosecutors don't have to prove that Tesla says "the car is fully autonomous today". They just have to prove that Tesla made statements that it knew weren't true, in order to get people to buy cars or Tesla stock. Those statements can be much narrower than "we have achieved full FSD", so long as they are material: that is, so long as they're significant enough to influence people's purchasing decisions.

wilg13• 4 years ago

Sure, I just wonder if there actually are any such statements. Seems like usually people point to statements that are Elon tweeting "I think it might be ready next year".

mike_d7• 4 years ago

It is a crime because he is collecting money for it now.

At the minimum it is a violation of the "30 day rule." If you accept money for a preorder of something, you must clearly state a delivery date. If you do not, it is assumed within 30 days of an order.

Tesla can face FTC fines of $16,000 per Autopilot sale, in addition to lawsuits from consumer protection agencies in every state where a vehicle was sold with the undelivered feature.

This is why all the crowdfunding platforms are basically donations with "rewards" of products and not preorders.

wilg13• 4 years ago

This is interesting and very specific. I would think that if this applied it would be quite open-and-shut, and handled by the FTC directly. So my guess is it does not apply. Perhaps because it is not "merchandise"?

dmitrygr• 4 years ago

why Elon claiming [...] could be considered any kind of crime?

Among many other reasons, if he knows it to be false but states it as is true, this is market manipulation

everforward2• 4 years ago

You can read the DMV's complaint at [1] which is kind of the prior art here; I haven't found a filing for criminal charges yet. It cites 4 things from the Tesla website:

1) Usage of the term "Autopilot"

2) Usage of the term "Full Self-Driving Capability"

3) The phrase: "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."

4) The statement: "From Home - 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 steets, complex intersections and freeways. To your Destination - 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."

3 is probably the most damning, because it specifically promises features that do not work, and could not legally be used in that way even if they did without further licensing.

1: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22128016-california-...

alfor3• 4 years ago

What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?

What if they actually saved lives?

There is plenty of video evidence of that: https://youtu.be/hF96jQ0SY8w

Would we try to stop it? A lot of companies would like to stop it, that’s for sure.

There no doubt that a computer will match a human, than exceed its capability, 24x7, never tired, never distracted.

For the moment, every drive has to acknowledge that they are responsible, need to keep the control and have to stay vigilant every time they use self-driving. It seems to me that take precedence to the product brochure or random comment in a tweet a few years ago.

Of course this comment is going to be heavily downvote like everything positive about Tesla here. I wonder why?

shadowpho• 4 years ago

What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?

And what if they are not?

Furthermore to me the issue is not safety vs not-safety, but the advertisement is clearly misleading at least

For the moment, every drive has to acknowledge that they are responsible, need to keep the control and have to stay vigilant every time they use self-driving. It seems to me that take precedence to the product brochure...

Maybe we should hold the company to make sure the product brochure is truthful. Because if people trust the brochure they might die over it.

alfor3• 4 years ago

Maybe.

On their site: https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/autopilot

"Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

It’s clear they are working toward full self driving but it’s not there yet.

"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."

mikestew• 4 years ago

What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?

And what if a frog had wings? Why, it wouldn't bump its ass when it hops!

I wonder why?

Probably not what you're thinking, but I'd guess a lot of "what if..." with a single, carefully-selected video to back the hypotheticals.

alfor3• 4 years ago

My point is that the tech is improving, we can aim for maximum safety and regulations but at the end would it save live or destroy more with the status quo.

There is a cost both ways, we are used to pay the cost of the status quo, it feel easier to push back against progress.

krisoft• 4 years ago

What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver? What if they actually saved lives? There is plenty of video evidence of that

"video evidence" is not the kind of evidence which can demonstrate that. The kind of evidence which could demonstrate that Teslas are safer than a regular driver would be statistics. Statistics which by the way is available to Tesla, and they could let researchers scrutinise if they choose to do so.

coding123• 4 years ago

I've said this in the past but instead of the government just allowing auto-updates and what not, the AI needs to pass a driving test. Each version must be certified by some test. No, not the same test a human driver goes through. Something super rigourous that involves semis tipping over, bridges falling from above, babies crawling in the road, dogs, deer, rain, smoke, hail, snow, elephants, downed power lines. Maybe even a 10 year old kid running in front.

Something that all of the companies would go through, administered by the government (not waymo).

CamperBob22• 4 years ago

Meanwhile, 30,000 people a year will continue to die in car crashes while you strangle the entire industry in red tape. But, hey, at least you're "doing something."

m4635• 4 years ago

Honestly, I agree.

It's sort of like "tax what you want less of" except with regulation

bottlepalm2• 4 years ago

If every car had Autopilot right now there would be a massive reduction in deaths. All the bad drivers, texting drivers, drunk drivers, and road rage drivers - given the option to take a break and watch some Netflix. Regardless of how imperfect FSD is, they are much much worse.

renewiltord2• 4 years ago

The self-driving cars report their disengagements to the DMV. The idea is simple: we don't know in what ways things can fail because this is terra incognita and so we allow certain restrictions and you be honest and we'll review if what you're doing is okay.

I think it's a remarkably sensible thing to do.

JeffL• 4 years ago

Every version of the software is tested on thousands of situations in simulation before release and has to pass all the regression tests which are constantly being added to. Surely this is much better than a super limited real world test. (It's also tested in the real world by testers before going into wider release.)

I think they are way ahead of you.

speedgoose3• 4 years ago

Good news, this kind of test exists to some extent with the euroncap and similar.

They do test a child running in front but not an elephant.

Also, any deep learning AI is extremely tested because that’s how you build such AI. Tesla and other built complex simulator to test their AIs.

I think the standard tests should eventually have more self driving scenarios, but what you wish is not too different than the current situation.

mlindner5• 4 years ago

This is after last week Reuters claimed that Elon Musk was under a federal investigation, which the White House later denied. (Almost no one reported the denial.) I'd wait for more information before jumping to conclusions.

Between the regular pro-Russian reporting and this and other issues I've found Reuters to be a highly unreliable source recently. They're very hit and miss.

Important also to look at the stock market. There's zero blip on the stock ticker from this news, which means that basically no one who owns decent amounts of TSLA stock care about this. Which generally means that they know something that's not in this article.

therouwboat• 4 years ago

"WILMINGTON, Del., Oct 13 (Reuters) - Elon Musk is being investigated by federal authorities over his conduct in his $44 billion takeover deal for Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), the social media company said in a court filing released on Thursday.

While the filing said he was under investigations, it did not say what the exact focus of the probes was and which federal authorities are conducting them."

They are reporting what the court filing said, what are they supposed to do?

mlindner5• 4 years ago

They are reporting what the court filing said, what are they supposed to do?

Maybe put a modicum of effort into verifying comments put forward by an antagonist in a court case? Lawyers regularly lie or twist the truth in an attempt to push their case forward.

ncallaway2• 4 years ago

which the White House later denied

I don't think the White House denied that Elon Musk was under investigation. It would be...completely inappropriate for the White House to comment on specific investigations from the FBI or DOJ.

Rather, the White House denied that there was a national security review of Elon Musk's projects. That's important, but very distinct from a denial that there are no investigations of Elon Musk. It's also a subject matter that is much more appropriate for the White House to comment on.

mlindner5• 4 years ago

I don't think the White House denied that Elon Musk was under investigation.

https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1584648258130829317

I'll let the White House press secretary speak.

wnevets• 4 years ago

I was told FSD cars was only 5 years away roughly 12 years ago.

smnrchrds• 4 years ago

Any day now, everyone will be playing Half-Life 3 on their Linux desktop during their commute in self-driving cars. /s

jra_samba• 4 years ago

A Tesla is a Linux desktop, of course. :-).

threeseed2• 4 years ago

There are robo-taxis from Cruise and Waymo running today.

They aren't perfect and there are plenty of manual fail safes but they are there.

sidibe• 4 years ago

I'll know when Tesla is actually taking these probes seriously when they finally take off the laughably deceptive video from https://www.tesla.com/autopilot.

Tldw it is a video that says the driver is only there for legal reasons, and it took them many takes to make the video.

That's been there for many many years and any time this topic comes up I check it and yup, still there.

outlace2• 4 years ago

A bit tangential but I just got a Tesla Model 3 and paid $6,000 extra for “enhanced autopilot” buying into all the marketing about it, and its one of the biggest regrets of my life and makes me unable to appreciate an otherwise great car. I just feel sick about it. The enhanced autopilot is buggy and doesn’t save me any effort. The summon and auto park don’t really work. I think it’s a scam. Other than that it’s a great car.

8f2ab37a-ed6c• 4 years ago

Your life is pretty damn good then, all things considered.

kyleyeats• 4 years ago

This is why I never have a good life. I can't give up my right to complain..

s1artibartfast4• 4 years ago

Yeah, total humble brag

tristanb2• 4 years ago

Interesting - we have it on our first car, love it, and just paid for it a second time on our second car. We regularly make 3-5hr trips with it driving. Maybe something is wrong with yours?

LastTrain2• 4 years ago

TristanB9 of SF by chance - that’d be a blast from the past! At any rate - Hmm. Know loads of people with Teslas and never heard of anyone going over 10 minutes on AP unless it’s just down a single lane of interstate or something. What kind of 5 hour trips are you doing?

sowbug4• 4 years ago

Same here. Model 3, purchased 1998, FSD beta since December 2021. FSD isn't perfect, but it works. It's about as skilled as an average student driver, which means I am hands-off but still have to be vigilant for mistakes.

Pucker factor influences any current-generation self-driving. I've given demos to friends in the passenger seat who have had such strong negative reactions that I've had to end the demo -- as in they want to reach over to grab the steering wheel to save our lives in mid-turn. This reaction isn't totally surprising; I've been in human-driven cars with people who simply cannot be a passenger because they're so jumpy.

It takes a leap of faith to let the car drive itself, but with that faith and the requisite attention, the experience is good.

heavyset_go• 4 years ago

Write to your state's Attorney's General office, they usually have consumer affairs divisions. The FTC also has a Bureau of Consumer Protection.

funstuff007• 4 years ago

The Feds are afraid of Musk. You may have better luck at the state level.

rockinghigh• 4 years ago

In my experience (Model 3 and Y), Basic Autopilot works very well on highways and is easier to use than the competition. However, enhanced autopilot and full self-driving do not provide benefits and are still unsafe outside freeways. They are used by Tesla to increase margins and hype their brand as innovative.

TaylorAlexander• 4 years ago

They are used by Tesla to increase margins and hype their brand as innovative.

Well, and legitimately they are used for data collection to improve the system. This is integral to how they develop FSD.

ryantgtg• 4 years ago

buying into all the marketing about it

How much research did you do? Genuinely wondering.

ocdtrekkie• 4 years ago

There's a nonzero likelihood Tesla ends up refunding this once they're forced to recall the feature.

modeless16• 4 years ago

Agreed on summon and auto park, they are total garbage and not at all useful. Navigate on Autopilot is slightly better, and can actually be nice occasionally, though there are plenty of situations where it just doesn't work. But there is a bit of the enhanced autopilot package that is genuinely useful, and that's autopilot lane changes. Being able to execute lane changes on the freeway just by pressing the turn signal once and without disengaging autopilot works well and is useful. Is it worth $6k? Maybe not, but it's something.

Personally, I bought FSD because I wanted to test it, not because I thought it would be robotaxi-level anytime soon. And also because I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.

jliptzin• 4 years ago

I agree, lane changes are a really nice feature for me that made it worth it although depending on how price sensitive you are it might not be worth it. I think people forget or don’t realize that tesla is purposely pricing this stuff for the kinds of people who think $6,000 is pocket change. If that’s not you, don’t buy it.

WXLCKNO• 4 years ago

My new 2023 BMW M340i also has lane change, lane keeping, radar/adaptive based cruise control and under 70kmh on the highway in traffic you don't even need to touch the steering wheel.

The bmw system costs $2k Canadian.

https://youtu.be/7M-J3JydpPA

A comparison between Tesla self driving and bmw, bmw seems superior.

Tesla has spent so much time focused on going to level 5 that other manufacturers had plenty of time to catch up.

Lendal• 4 years ago

Lane change is also buggy now for my Model Y. Since the last couple updates about 5% of the time it jerks back into the current lane after moving about 50% across the line, as if it had suddenly seen a ghost in that other lane. There is nothing there of course, but its jerking motion back to the current lane is very frustrating and embarrassing. Other drivers must think I'm having a seizure.

I drive the car 100% manually now. I don't even use cruise control it's that bad. $60K on a car that doesn't even have usable cruise control is disappointing.

My experiences with FSD tell me that it will never fulfill its promises and I'm just out $10K. Some other manufacturer maybe could do it, but not Tesla under its current leadership.

I'm hoping Lucid can pick up the mantle where Tesla left off.

humanistbot• 4 years ago

I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.

This is called "specific performance" [1] and it is extremely rare for courts to compel fulfilling a contract when the standard approach of monetary damages will suffice. At the very worst case scenario for Tesla, they could be forced to refund those upgrades or even buy back the cars. One big way specific performance is used is if someone contracts to transfer real estate or infrastructure to be used as part of a bigger development project, but tries to pull out. Or if a subcontractor partially fulfills their duties as part of a bigger project, but is holding up key components.

Imagine someone has contracted with a tax accountant to help them respond to an audit. The contract says the client can fire the accountant and end the relationship at any time. The contract also says that if the client fires the accountant, they must pay $1000, and once payment is received, the accountant will transfer all records to the client within 24 hours.

The client fires the accountant and writes a check for $1000. The accountant refuses to take the check and refuses to transfer the files. A court might order specific performance that the accountant must fulfill the terms of the contract. This kind of issue is easy for courts to mandate specific performance, it is pretty straightforward to determine if the files have been transferred or not. The client faces monetary damages for sure if they don't get the files to give to their new accountant. But monetary damages aren't really a good way to make the wrong right.

But assuming a court sides against Tesla, what is the most commonsense remedy to make the wrong right? Refund the sales of a product that was not as advertised, or force the company to make the product into what was advertised? Courts don't have the kind of expertise or understanding of what is technically possible in future technology development.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance

CloudRecondite2• 4 years ago

It’s pretty crazy you payed 6k to beta test something that you didn’t even believe would work. It’s nice to have a rabid fanbase.

thunky2• 4 years ago

Personally, I bought FSD because I wanted to test it

Funny how Tesla is able to pull this off. I can't think of another brand that so easily gets people to throw large sums of money at it while expecting so little in return.

I wonder what percentage of Telsa car owners are also shareholders.

Nobody gives Toyota $6k for no good reason, but TM is not in the same league as TSLA.

cmelbye• 4 years ago

Autopilot is basically worthless to me. I use it for a couple minutes at a time at most. The first time it slammed on the brakes on an empty highway, taking me from 70 to 40, I completely lost faith.

benhurmarcel• 4 years ago

I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.

I agree the hardware won't be enough, but I find more likely that the software will actually get available after your current car has passed its normal lifetime, and you'll have gotten rid of it already.

soco• 4 years ago

My 7y old VW Touran has autopark which works (nb: for parking places big enough). But maybe it's not the same thing as Tesla's?

giobox• 4 years ago

Curious, what did you expect here? As far as I can tell, enhanced ap is identical to the standard "basic ap" on all cars, the only additions are:

* automated lane change when you press indicator

* Summon (a google tells you all you need to know about how bad)

* Autopark (this has never worked on my model 3 either, aside from a handful of times. Again, common knowledge it doesn't work).

* Automated freeway exit selection

Otherwise, its the same pretty good lane-keep system they give you with the car as standard.

Of course, Tesla being Tesla I'm sure the feature set will change with time, so maybe you get more later? Tesla don't promise this though, and like all tech you should evaluate purchase on its features today, not its promises tomorrow? I might have missed something, but generally thats all it adds over the basic AP you got with the car, and it's quite clearly documented as such. I can certainly agree I'd feel sick too if I'd paid $6k for it in its current advertised form!

outlace2• 4 years ago

I thought the "navigate on autopilot" feature was basically FSD but on highway only. But no, it just suggests lane changes that are dumb most of the time. Yes, I can only blame myself really, but I can't believe they would even sell such a worthless package for $6,000 more.

dham5• 4 years ago

Yea Autopilot is just adaptive cruise control on every other car maker. Such an awful term. Full self driving is the in city driving, negotiating stoplights, turns etc.

m4635• 4 years ago

The (mobileye) autopilot (version 1) is actually useful and good within its limits. It parallel parks. It summons (in a straight line, like out of the garage). It will maintain speed and distance with traffic aware cruise control. Add autosteer and it keeps its lane well. (autosteer does hunts a bit when roads get super-curvy). But it generally helps drive the car.

Is autopark that bad on the model 3? To parallel park I just pull past an open spot (to let the sonar sensors see the gap) and when the P symbol shows up, put it in reverse and press [Start] on the display. It usually parks better than I could especially with tight spots.

formerly_proven• 4 years ago

There's a hilarious video where you can see a modern Tesla utterly failing at parking while an old Tesla with mobileye works just fine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

groos• 4 years ago

I had the option of paying $3,000 for FSD back in 2018, declined, and am still convinced that was the right decision. Have no real complaints about EAP, apart from its phantom braking issues, which seem to have improved with time. I suspect, part of how well EAP works may be how well the training data match your locale.

datavirtue2• 4 years ago

"Other than that it’s a great car."

Please update this review in a few years.

CIO was late to work, again, today because the Tesla no go. One thing after another. It's kind of ridiculous.

FireBeyond8• 4 years ago

The summon and auto park don’t really work.

(One of) the things that pisses me off about this is all through Tesla's marketing and website, the consistent undertone is that these are complete and working, but that much of EAP and FSD is "just awaiting regulatory approval", when that's far from the case.

Of course, it's very convenient for Tesla, too, if it never happens (and I think we are a decade or so at least from anything), they will just point blame away from themselves, ignoring that what they've offered would never reach the barrier for regulatory approval. And there will be the usual cries about the short sellers, and "big oil" pressure, rather than placing blame where it lies, Elon's cowboy-esque attitude to the whole thing.

sgc• 4 years ago

I think one of the the questions being asked here is if there is not something a bit more sinister than just being a cowboy at play, but that it is a ruse to make money. I was literally asking myself that question this morning before I heard of this case. I had no answer (mainly because there is not enough evidence against the hypothesis). I am interested to see what, if anything, they manage to unearth.

HWR_14• 4 years ago

At least you didn't pay $10,000 (or is it now $14,000?) for FSD you cannot get into the beta of.

rzimmerman2• 4 years ago

For my Model Y:

The car itself is wonderful. Driving a Tesla is a level beyond anything else I've owned.

Autopilot on freeways works great. I disagree that it's deceptive. The name is confusing to the average person (it sounds like it drives itself without help). But there are constant reminders that you need to pay attention and be ready to take over. Stupid people will be stupid. A name change wouldn't be the worst outcome, but it's a great feature.

Navigate on autopilot is not great. It's kind of useful, but makes dumb lane changes and is too timid in traffic to work. Being able to switch lanes with a turn signal is useful and I use it.

Auto park is garbage and only works on very easy parking spots. Half the time it doesn't even "detect" the spot and won't offer the option. It's also not that good at parking.

Summon (classic) is useful for me. I use it to move my car out of the way to take out the trash. It's cool and not dangerous, though not super useful.

Smart summon is dangerous and not useable. As a previous commenter said, it has serious "nervous raccoon energy" and either gets confused or nearly hits things.

Full self driving is not even close to ready. It's nowhere near what was promised (get in your car and it drives you from A to B). It's unclear to me that this is even possible with the vision hardware in the car. I like playing with it, but I've never had a successful drive without having to take over. This was massively overhyped, perpetually pushed out, and honestly I agree with the fraud case here.

I'm mostly annoyed that all the broken features have sat stagnant while the company works on FSD releases that incrementally improve something that's fundamentally not even close to working right.

zhoujianfu2• 4 years ago

I just want to add a hearty “+1” to the everything rzimmerman said here!

I do not recommend people pay for summon/autopark/fsd/navigate. The basic autopilot is pretty good for highway driving and great that Tesla includes it free though. The simple summon is fun and works most of the time but not worth paying for.

extrememacaroni• 4 years ago

I disagree that it's deceptive. The name is confusing

okay then

ricardobayes2• 4 years ago

There was never a good reason to use AI for self-parking. Computer-vision based self-parking systems are perfectly functional and robust (see Mercedes from 2014).

redindian75• 4 years ago

I am on FSD beta since Nov of last year, it's an absolute game changer one minute, and a total teenage driver next minute. But every update makes it better , new features , tweaked turning radius, the microsecend it takes to move forward - every bit of detail is tweaked.

I use it all the time - it takes me to dentist, drives me home - every single drive. It actively monitors traffic lights when stopped & when it turns green - it chimes, blinking lights, yields, left turn yields, pedestrians, bicycles on the road, dogs and blind spots - all of it gets managed by the car with just 5-10% of my attention. It doesnt let me pickup my phone (I get a warning) or fiddle with spotify. I need to keep my hands and be active, but I am not anxious about blind spot checks or bicycles in the dark.

When it is released to the general public, it will be groundbreaking.

bergenty2• 4 years ago

FSD works really well. I live in a suburban place so it works well almost 100% of the time. I haven’t “driven” to the grocery store in months.

agumonkey• 4 years ago

I'm surprised, maybe I was blinded by pro-tesla channels, but some recent videos about users trying the latest "autopilot" update shown very impressive results (crossing+insertion into low sight high traffic roads).

leobg• 4 years ago

I don’t think it’s a scam. It’s just Elon getting ahead of himself. And reality sometimes just needs a little to catch up. Both Tesla and SpaceX would not exist if his mind didn’t work like that.

If Summon doesn’t work, try turning on Bluetooth on your phone.

ricardobayes2• 4 years ago

Self-driving is currently in the 'valley of disillusionment', much like 3D printing was about 3 years ago. 3D printing currently doesn't make any headlines, but the industry quietly adopted it. I think self-driving is going to go through similar changes.

smaryjerry4• 4 years ago

I agree. Self driving, VR, and 3D printing all feel like they are in the same boat together. It’s tech that if it was a little better it could get full adoption but the current solutions feel like they aren’t enough for full adoption. Self-driving lacks because what’s the point if you have to self monitor at the same time, VR because the resolution and frame rate are barely better than a desktop computer so the immersion isn’t there, and 3D printing lacks because it’s extremely slow, struggles with certain designs, and needs sanding after - again all are missing the primary problems they mean to address and are only half-fixes. Why do I want to 3D print something when it’s going to take me 2 hours to sand down the ugly edges also? Why do I want full self driving when I have to stay just as alert? Why do I want immerse myself in a virtual reality that feels so fake?

CloudRecondite2• 4 years ago

They should probably get a head start on the Tesla Bot investigation as well

hnburnsy• 4 years ago

the people familiar with the inquiry said the sources said they said. one of the sources said this source said

These articles with no named sources are so tiring. This one didn't even bother to tell us why the sources are anonymous. Hard news and serious journalism is dead and buried. Did this reporter even have to leave their figurative basement to write this story?

rsynnott• 4 years ago

If reporters name their sources on stories like this, then suddenly they don't have sources anymore, and the media becomes, well, pretty much a system to regurgitate press releases. Like, this is how it has always worked.

cbeach2• 4 years ago

What is the government’s minimum standard for a car autopilot to be sold as an “autopilot”?

Air autopilots rely on a pilot being present, observant, and able to take over if necessary. Air autopilots are not infallible.

How could the government come up with benchmark standards for car autopilots when Tesla (and others) are actively inventing the technology?

How could Tesla realistically train its ML models if not for the billions of miles of data it collects from Tesla owners?

How much damage will this litigation do to American autonomy R&D?

How much of the recent Musk hatred (by institutions such as the media, and large elements of the public) is due to Musk re-aligning himself politically against the Democrats and Big Tech?

everforward2• 4 years ago

What is the government’s minimum standard for a car autopilot to be sold as an “autopilot”?

California seems to be using the Society of Automotive Engineer's standard here, per the forms for applying for an AV license.

Air autopilots rely on a pilot being present, observant, and able to take over if necessary. Air autopilots are not infallible.

Air autopilots aren't really comparable. First and foremost, pilots require far more rigorous training than drivers, and are unlikely to be wholly unaware of the limitations of autopilot. It's also almost unanimously agreed that air autopilot is safer than manual flying under some conditions. There's some debate over how heavily it should be used, but I can't find anyone saying it shouldn't be used at all.

How could Tesla realistically train its ML models if not for the billions of miles of data it collects from Tesla owners?

Tesla would pay employees, who are well-versed in the risks, to monitor the vehicles while they drive. The same thing that other self-driving companies do.

How much damage will this litigation do to American autonomy R&D?

Probably very little. Tesla is the only one selling to consumers, so they're really the only one in the space that could be at risk from this lawsuit.

How much of the recent Musk hatred (by institutions such as the media, and large elements of the public) is due to Musk re-aligning himself politically against the Democrats and Big Tech?

I won't discount it as a possibility, but Musk has had a lot of detractors for a long time. It was bound to happen at some point; you can only overpromise and underdeliver for so long before people start to notice.

nixass2• 4 years ago

Will they finally be forced to name it adaptive cruise control, as it should've been from beginning?

twblalock9• 4 years ago

It's not adaptive cruise control. Teslas already have adaptive cruise control, for free, on every model. The FSD feature also steers the car.

m4635• 4 years ago

I think without autopilot/fsd you just get dumb cruise control. There is no follow distance.

If it slows down for cars it might be emergency collision avoidance that does it.

StillBored• 4 years ago

So, much of this sounds like a question of just how much you can lie in your marketing material if you then take it all back in the click-through.

I'm curious how many times people have been refunded for the enhanced autopilot claiming a bait and switch. They believed the marketing materials purchased the car, and then discovered when they get it "hey not really".

But, I'm guessing what will hang them, is the question over whether people actually believed the warnings were real or just CYA, and then promptly treated it like a full "better than human" AI.

Melatonic• 4 years ago

I met someone recently who told me they SLEPT on their way to work in their Tesla. On purpose. They bought the car specifically because they had a very long 2.5 hour commute.

The marketing for this stuff is absolutely liable and as much as I like what Tesla has done for electric cars in general we are one big, massive accident away from this all absolutely blowing up.

twblalock9• 4 years ago

I met someone recently who told me they SLEPT on their way to work in their Tesla. On purpose. They bought the car specifically because they had a very long 2.5 hour commute.

Think about that. If someone can literally sleep while the car is driving itself, and it doesn't crash, then the self-driving feature actually works really well.

I mean, try doing that in a Chevy.

Veserv4• 4 years ago

No. Humans average something like 250,000 miles per insurance-worthy event. Even if we assumed a average speed of 80 mph, which is absurdly high, that is ~3,000 hours between accidents. That system would need to make the interaction-less roundtrip commute 600 times, 2.5 work years, without even a single minor accident for the unassisted system to even be comparable to the average driver.

dangrossman• 4 years ago

I mean, try doing that in a Chevy.

I was under the impression Chevy SuperCruise outperformed Tesla FSD in most ways, other than being bound to mapped roads.

JohnJamesRambo• 4 years ago

I’ll never understand anyone that has this much faith in technology. Too many blue screens in my formative years.

Not do I understand anyone trusting their Tesla this much. Even the cruise control freaks out sometimes and slams on the brakes from phantom apparitions. I don’t even trust the base autosteer feature going down the highway.

steve_adams_862• 4 years ago

Too many blue screens in my formative years.

Those blue screens occurred in dramatically less complex and better understood software, too.

I'm not saying we don't understand how FSD works, or the underlying technology. It's not a complete black box. I believe there was even a proof recently showing that these things are essentially massive decision trees and they can be deterministically unravelled.

But this is otherwise totally negligent from where I'm standing.

mlindner5• 4 years ago

I met someone recently who told me they SLEPT on their way to work in their Tesla.

He'd have to work around and bypass several safety features that prevent you from doing this. You cannot do this out of the box. You have to work hard to get it to do it.

I take any claims of people doing this with a large grain of salt.

willio582• 4 years ago

This is common in the community though, you literally just have to use a certain weight on the wheel

gnicholas2• 4 years ago

Yeah, I was not thrilled when a friend gave me a ride in a Tesla and was nodding off as we sped down 101. I kept trying to ask him questions to keep him awake, with limited success.

Balgair2• 4 years ago

Hey, I don't know if you need to hear this, but: I think your friend isn't very good at being a friend back to you. You may need to re-evaluate.

willio582• 4 years ago

So unsafe. I work with someone who’s very pro-Tesla and she let AP beta drive us around the Seattle area a few times when I visited a while ago. We got into 2 near-accidents. Firstly, the car ran over a cone on the freeway going 65mph+. Second, it almost turned into oncoming traffic out of nowhere driving in a residential/commercial area.

bergenty2• 4 years ago

It works really well in any place that isn’t a dense city. Out here in the suburbs it’s pretty fantastic.

zhoujianfu2• 4 years ago

Out here in west LA it’s a joke! But I have thought to myself, “this thing would work pretty well in rural/suburban settings.”

sngz• 4 years ago

I drove next to a guy on the highway that was sleeping in his tesla. his head was cocked backwards with his mouth wide open probably snoring. we were probably going 70mph.

LeanderK2• 4 years ago

very long 2.5 hour commute

imagine doing nothing else besides working and commenting. I can't. It sounds like a recipe for a lonely life.

smaryjerry4• 4 years ago

I don’t think it has to be a bad thing. It be an interesting statistical problem. What is worse, a person who drives sleepy for 5 hours each day or a person who gives up control to a computer for 5 hours each day. Point being we are attempting to compare FSD to complete perfect driving, when the comparison should be with current drivers. If it is an improvement or reduction in crashes why not use it? Maybe it’s because we aren’t sure who to blame in case something goes wrong? I know back seat drivers that get uncomfortable as a passenger a lot even with a driver with zero accidents and would rather drive themselves, yet have crashed several times themselves at their fault. They misjudge their own abilities and the situation, a need for certain aggressive driving. I think many are misjudging the average drivers ability without self driving and we could be causing a lot of loss of life by not taking a statistically better option out of human hubris.

ycombobreaker3• 4 years ago

This is not a valid comparison, though. Rather, consider the extrapolation: "drive for 20 hours or let a computer drive for 20 hours?". (edit: the extrapolation is intended to highlight the absurdity of the premise.) The correct answer is to mitigate the risk with breaks or safer alternative transport such as a hired driver. It's not a closed system with only two possible solutions.

If the solution is not tenable, the plan should be aborted. Not rammed through via abuse of technology.

8bitsrule4• 4 years ago

Because the number of variables, an experienced human driver has to be ready to make decisions that they can't specifically train for. What AI can reach that deep?

I once had a few seconds to choose between 1) a multi-vehicle collision at 60mph with oncoming vehicles in both lanes that had a steep up-hillside to their right (one was a gasoline tanker), and 2) getting my vehicle stopped on a two-foot shoulder with a long steep 45-degree down-hillside next to it (no guard rail). I would NOT have wanted computer assistance, thanks anyway.

jaimex2• 4 years ago

Any. You're describing the trolley problem which is silly.

The car should be traveling at a speed where it can break and stay in its lane to avoid any at fault accident. Nothing more, nothing less.

akira2501• 4 years ago

You're describing a utopia where outcomes are perfectly predictable, which is silly.

"And roads should be without any defect, weather should never happen, pedestrians and other drivers should always behave rationally, and black ice is not legally allowed to exist."

tim3333• 4 years ago

I was going to say, the vast majority of weird near crash situations can be dealt with by slowing/stopping. That is probably not so hard to program in and not so different from what humans do.

8bitsrule4• 4 years ago

Silly remark. The trolley problem involves the unavoidable death of at least one party - the decider is not among those who die. Not analogous.

The Uber that killed Elaine Herzberg in 2018 failed to solve the only problem it had. Did the CPU die? Did Uber or Uber's president?

My decision saved the 3 lives in the oncoming vehicles (including the idiot who decided to try passing the gasoline tanker in their rattletrap), as well as my own and those of the two additional children I eventually had (and their children).

Ptchd• 4 years ago

Probably better off with https://comma.ai

joshribakoff• 4 years ago

When I bought FSD it stated clearly it depended on technological and regulatory advances, so I’m not sure I get the argument that I was a victim of fraud.

Also, I haven’t seen it mentioned here, but the tech does exist and currently you have to demonstrate “safe” (according to their heuristics) driving to get access. I have access, and it more or less does the things they promised, far from perfect (in fact it makes lots of mistakes where I take over for safety), but I fail to see how they promised perfection. My interpretation of the “full” in full self driving was that it handles the full list of maneuvers they enumerated like obeying traffic control and making turns, which it does do today.

pengaru• 4 years ago

The probe's not limited to FSD claims, from TFA:

The U.S. Department of Justice launched the previously undisclosed probe last year following more than a dozen crashes, some of them fatal, involving Tesla’s driver assistance system Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said.

onionisafruit2• 4 years ago

I wonder how that compares to the number of accidents where BMW’s driver assistance was activated. BMW seems to be actively trying to kill me by steering into every construction marker it sees.

m4635• 4 years ago

actually the part where people have to "demonstrate" driving is what really bothers me.

You should NOT have to beg permission. This is normalizing a dystopian future, which tesla is also doubling down on with their car insurance

postmeta• 4 years ago

"hands free driving" should probably investigate https://www.gmc.com/connectivity-technology/super-cruise

dirkg• 4 years ago

Musk/Tesla have been selling alpha quality at best and vaporware in reality FSD for a long time. Its never ever going to work as claimed. Its crap software that endangers other people on the road and routinely kills people and all they needed to do is add a stupid disclaimer and the magic 'beta'. Every few months Musk will lie that its 'done' and out at the end of the year, with outlandish nonsense claims like his robotaxi in 2016/17, his most recent one that you wont need a human driver.

Its a massive scam and fraud thats made them trillions, and its amazing they haven't been sued for it.

bottlepalm2• 4 years ago

Idk it works pretty well for me. I have FSD on like 90% of the time at least. Total game changer.

ok_dad4• 4 years ago

I, as a software engineer, will never trust an autonomous vehicle that is not on rails. Even then, it better be a slow-ass train so I can jump off with minor injuries if anything goes awry.

I might trust a fully-open-sourced vehicle, produced in a manner which the software and hardware design and implementation are fully verified as error-free versus a simple-to-understand open-source model. That will never happen, though.

A4ET8a8uTh02• 4 years ago

I am not an engineer, but I feel the same way about payment systems. It is all so fragile when you peek behind the scenes that it is hard to justify using anything, but most basic services.

panick21_3• 4 years ago

How do you think banks work?

AlotOfReading2• 4 years ago

It's totally fine to have lines you won't cross, but as you say literally none of this is going to happen. Autonomous vehicles aren't on rails and error-free isn't a thing.

I'm also not sure how a fully open source stack would help to alleviate your safety concerns. Current vehicle stacks are impossible for a single individual to meaningfully review, however motivated. These are incredibly complicated distributed systems with dozens of processors running multiple operating systems and frameworks on top of those before you even get to application code. The safety requirements alone consume thousands of pages.

ok_dad4• 4 years ago

Currently the vehicle may fail but generally my brain won’t, except in certain cases. I’m fine with that, not with my car driving into a barrier it thought was a road. I probably won’t make that mistake.

ok_dad4• 4 years ago

I also cannot know what’s in my computer’s Linux kernel but I feel better knowing everyone else can, and some of them can find bugs and fix them fairly easily. With closed source stuff, only the software developers at the company can see the code, which limits the eyeballs on it.

zulban• 4 years ago

"are fully verified as error-free"

If you think this is possible you must not be a very good software engineer. Maybe that was your point. If so, you should say "I accept faulty human drivers but will forever reject anything worse than absolute perfection in autonomous drivers".

ok_dad4• 4 years ago

I’m not a very good software developer, no, and that was my point. I’m a decent driver, but usually I farm that out to my wife who is better. Based on my phones swipe keyboard performance, I’ll say I don’t trust software developers to create a car’s brain.

andbberger2• 4 years ago

we've fallen a long ways from formal verification in the first fully automated metro (paris line 14) to this clowns shit being allowed on the streets.

gremlinsinc• 4 years ago

I'd trust a hovering one especially if it's more like a maglev pod and not a large drone.

firefoxkekw• 4 years ago

Not so long ago, Andrej Karpathy, the ex-Director of AI at Tesla left the company.

I ask myself a couple of questions, if Tesla was to release in the near future, some game changer technology in the self-driving space and I was the face behind it, would I leave the company so other person could take the merit? Would I leave the company because I think they are going to push something that I consider dangerous to the public and I don't want to be the scapegoat?

sircastor• 4 years ago

Back during the summer, and friend of mine’s son was killed in an accident involving a Tesla on autopilot. I can’t help but feel like the oversell of Autopilot’s capabilities is just Elon Musk feeding his own ego.

user3939382• 4 years ago

My jaded view is that companies this size routinely commit criminal acts but enforcement is the selective result of political relationships in DC.

There’s obviously some spat going on between Musk and the Biden administration that the public has limited insight into. Suddenly Biden’s DOJ is going after Musk… too much of a coincidence for me.

tim3333• 4 years ago

Musk has been fairly open on the spat. Basically Biden is funded by the unions and promotes unionised car companies like Ford/GM over Tesla. I doubt the DOJ thing is part of it.

ghufran_syed• 4 years ago

My commute is 80 miles each way - I would have left that job long ago if I didn't have "autopilot" reducing the mental effort of the drive.YMMV

concinds2• 4 years ago

I haven't seen anyone note the timing of this:

Musk is buying Twitter today or tomorrow, and he'll likely need to sell more Tesla stock unless he can get additional financing. This news will obviously depress Tesla stock. The timing is hardly inconspicuous.

causi3• 4 years ago

AEB, lane departure warning, blind spot detection, parking assist I all understand. I understand the "wink wink, nudge nudge" reasons to buy systems like autopilot, blue cruise, toyota lane tracing, etc. What I don't get is the by-the-books reasons to buy it. What the hell value are you getting out of autopilot if you're actually keeping your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road? I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm asking why the hell you're paying thousands of dollars to do it.

UltraViolence2• 4 years ago

I totally agree! Either the car drives itself or I drive. There's no need to let a car take the wheel if you have to baby-sit it all the time, intervening when it runs off the road. It's dangerous and lulls drivers into thinking the car can drive itself.

causi3• 4 years ago

Right. Give me "highway mode" where all the car has to do is stay in the lane and not hit the car in front me, and not hassle me about watching the road or touching the wheel so I can watch a youtube video during my thirty minute interstate ride to work. It's going to be a long damn time before I trust a car to do anything more complicated than that by itself.

cheeze• 4 years ago

I can't wait for the day that a car _can_ drive better than a human. I see it as a safety thing. We're obviously nowhere near that but one can dream of safer roads...

causi3• 4 years ago

I'm not. It'll be the end of car ownership. Why would any manufacturer sell me a car when they could add it to their autonomous taxi fleet instead?

UltraViolence2• 4 years ago

IMHO this is long overdue! Many people have died who relied on their Tesla's to drive them to work (sometimes even taking a nap while it drove).

And Tesla's claim that "Full Self Driving" is merely a phrase that doesn't describe the capabilities of its software is weak and criminally deceitful.

Tesla needs to be held accountable for this.

stockerta• 4 years ago

I just doesn't get it, how it is legal to beta test self driving cars on public roads?

tim3333• 4 years ago

Claim it's a driver assist system like cruise control. Whether that's moral or desirable it another debate.

dncornholio• 4 years ago

What bothers me is that Tesla is putting up the blame to the drivers not using it as instructed. This bothers me so deeply.

People can and will fail to follow instructions. You have to design around this. If you don't have failsafe mechanisms, don't ship.

Tesla's not taking enough responsibility.

Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims

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