<story><title>German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving</title><url>https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN24F1T5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dkonofalski</author><text>I agree with this wholeheartedly, even as a Tesla owner. Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like &amp;quot;Autosteer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Traffic Assisted Cruise Control&amp;quot; under the moniker &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot; while shifting everything above that to &amp;quot;Full Self-Driving&amp;quot;.  They should have called it &amp;quot;CoPilot&amp;quot; since that infers that you&amp;#x27;re still the driver in charge of controlling the vehicle and it would have had exactly the same reception (possibly better) than what&amp;#x27;s happening now. As it stands, it&amp;#x27;s misleading and, frankly, disappointing to get into a Tesla for the first time and try &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot; only to realize that you have to keep your hands on the wheel, navigate the accelerator and brakes, stop at lights and stop signs, and basically drive the car while it keeps you in the lane and stops you from hitting other cars. That&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;CoPilot&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stetrain</author><text>Actually I think the name &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot; is the least troublesome part of the marketing.&lt;p&gt;Other car makers call their systems CoPilot, ProPilot, SuperCruise, whatever and I think the name matters less than the communication and details of using the system.&lt;p&gt;The main Autopilot marketing page shows a video of a Tesla driving itself, says the Driver is there for legal purposes only, and provides no other disclaimers about the limitations, or that the demonstration is of internal test software and not reproducible with consumer vehicles.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tesla.com&amp;#x2F;autopilot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tesla.com&amp;#x2F;autopilot&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Actually using the car, the system is fairly clear about the need to pay attention and keep your hands on the wheel, but it allows you to engage Autosteer in areas the manual says you should not (ie city streets) and does not clearly indicate what areas are good or not good for using Autosteer. SuperCruise only works on specifically listed highway segments, which limits its usefulness but also prevents these issues.&lt;p&gt;Also Tesla relies on the steering wheel torque sensor to determine driver presence. This leads to false negatives (my hands are on the wheel but not providing a turning force so the car gives an alert) and is easily bypassed (there are third party products that clip on to the steering wheel and provide enough weight to fool the system).&lt;p&gt;Competing systems (SuperCruise, BMW) use driver monitor cameras or capacitive wheel sensors to provide a better indication of driver attentiveness.</text></comment>
<story><title>German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving</title><url>https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN24F1T5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dkonofalski</author><text>I agree with this wholeheartedly, even as a Tesla owner. Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like &amp;quot;Autosteer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Traffic Assisted Cruise Control&amp;quot; under the moniker &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot; while shifting everything above that to &amp;quot;Full Self-Driving&amp;quot;.  They should have called it &amp;quot;CoPilot&amp;quot; since that infers that you&amp;#x27;re still the driver in charge of controlling the vehicle and it would have had exactly the same reception (possibly better) than what&amp;#x27;s happening now. As it stands, it&amp;#x27;s misleading and, frankly, disappointing to get into a Tesla for the first time and try &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot; only to realize that you have to keep your hands on the wheel, navigate the accelerator and brakes, stop at lights and stop signs, and basically drive the car while it keeps you in the lane and stops you from hitting other cars. That&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;Autopilot&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;CoPilot&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>HumblyTossed</author><text>If you use the wayback machine and look at their AutoPilot page, the very first thing you see is ... well, here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20170201120106&amp;#x2F;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tesla.com&amp;#x2F;autopilot&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;web.archive.org&amp;#x2F;web&amp;#x2F;20170201120106&amp;#x2F;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tesla...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;They wanted people to believe that this had more capabilities than it really does.</text></comment>