Is Full Self Driving (FSD) critical to the success of Tesla in the auto industry?

[TexLaw]

FSD may be more important to Tesla's success that other automakers' because of how much they've marketed FSD's future in their cars. However, I don't see it as critical to their survival.

Frankly, I don't see full, L5 FSD coming to anyone until it comes to almost everyone. That's because I have a hard time seeing true FSD coming to anyone unless and until cars communicate with each other or some manner of infrastructure. While I do believe that, eventually, a car can be its own driver just based on what it can sense, we aren't going to be there in only a few years. We just aren't far enough along technologically and (perhaps even more importantly) with regard to regulatory and other non-technological structure (such as insurance).

No one is more ready for real, honest-to-goodness, self-driving cars than I am. However, when I ordered nearly a year ago, I never believed real FSD was going to happen in six months or a year or even in a few years. By the same token, I agreed that the $3,000 option price for FSD was (and is) priced at an enormous discount to its value.

 

[Tam]

...they will be hit with a class action lawsuit and probably end up issuing millions in refunds...

There has been already an Autopilot lawsuit complaining the delays of functions.

There have been many discussions on this subject.

Some agree with the law suit and think that the deadline for Autopilot to fully function was 12/2016.

I read the same thing but I myself think Tesla has its escape clause/disclosure that you can pay now but there's no timeline to get it working.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

There has been already an Autopilot lawsuit complaining the delays of functions.

There have been many discussions on this subject.

Some agree with the law suit and think that the deadline for Autopilot to fully function was 12/2016.

I read the same thing but I myself think Tesla has its escape clause/disclosure that you can pay now but there's no timeline to get it working.

Darn that regulatory approval holding back the automatic lane changes and freeway transitions!

 

[Tam]

Darn that regulatory approval holding back the automatic lane changes and freeway transitions!

Regulatory approval is just an excuse because 3 states Florida, Michigan, Georgia have allowed driverless cars as long as they obey traffic laws.

On the other hand, escape key words are:

Expected: its a soft promise and not a hard legal obligation.

Complete Validation: the process can be dragged out forever with no guarantee of completion!

Be rolled out: it's a process of a start and there's no promise of when the start process will be finished.

 

[chillaban]

On the other hand, escape key words are:

Expected: its a soft promise and not a hard legal obligation.

Complete Validation: the process can be dragged out forever with no guarantee of completion!

Be rolled out: it's a process of a start and there's no promise of when the start process will be finished.

As crappy as it is, I agree with Tam. The wording of the statement, for exactly the 3 key phrases that are pointed out above, is not exactly an airtight promise. What Tesla did was a dick move but legally I don't think it'll be very easy to get them for misleading advertising. They simply have the plausible deniability of "we really thought we could deliver these features in 2 months but wow this is actually kinda hard".

 

[AnxietyRanger]

As crappy as it is, I agree with Tam. The wording of the statement, for exactly the 3 key phrases that are pointed out above, is not exactly an airtight promise. What Tesla did was a dick move but legally I don't think it'll be very easy to get them for misleading advertising. They simply have the plausible deniability of "we really thought we could deliver these features in 2 months but wow this is actually kinda hard".

That is probably up to the legal discovery, though. If it could be shown no way did Tesla "expect" that to happen in the timeline they communicated, then saying something is expected could be misleading marketing.

Was it really that unexpectedly hard? Or was it an orchestrated dance around the truth? Or how about the mid-road, they should have known better? That matters at times too - playing dumb is not always okay...

Consumer legislation can of course differ a lot based on the jurisdiction... And of course they are a publicly traded company, so there's that too, concerning disclosures.

I guess the lawsuits testing these theories will come eventually. So far Tesla's track-record on the ones that were taken to court is not too impressive: P85D HP loss in Norway, P90DL performance conter settlement (reversal) in the U.S. Their best bet is nobody suing.

 

[renim]

1stly
Appearing the lead deployer of fsd is critical for tesla stock story and to a lesser extant consumer story.

2 key words.
Appear and deploy

Does it hurt if tesla trails waymo in usa, and lags the chinese in china?
Ans. Not really
Waymo doesn't sell cars so tesla can still lead in fsd in purchasable cars.
And its americans (not chinese) who mostly support tesla share price.

 

[googleiscoul]

But if you think about it they have such a huge incentive to finish it on time (but even if not with this hardware) the ride-sharing aspect is undeniable - if they get it to market they'll be banking. And a plus is that if they use current hardware they already have a bunch of cars they sold. The amount of money this could make them could make them one of the bigger companies like apple or Google in my opinion. They already do solar, cars, semis, backup power batteries, and they make a whole lot of batteries now that are pretty cutting edge (production ready). So really they do have an incentive to finish it - it's just, when?

 

[croman]

As crappy as it is, I agree with Tam. The wording of the statement, for exactly the 3 key phrases that are pointed out above, is not exactly an airtight promise. What Tesla did was a dick move but legally I don't think it'll be very easy to get them for misleading advertising. They simply have the plausible deniability of "we really thought we could deliver these features in 2 months but wow this is actually kinda hard".

Quite simply I disagree. Consumer protection laws are not based on contract. Rather companies marketing to consumers bear the burden of clear communications and their misrepresentations, whether intentional or deceitful, create liability.

Volvo was recently reminded of this in IL for lying about battery capacity of their PHEV in IL. Note the owner ADMITTED the range was exactly what was advertised just not the capacity.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-ilnd-1_16-cv-04507/pdf/USCOURTS-ilnd-1_16-cv-04507-2.pdf

Granted, losing a Motion to Dismiss is not winning the overall case but I am very familiar with IL laws and Volvo is in serious trouble and I fail to see how or why the same can't apply to Tesla who deceives all 75kwh battery purchasers with a car that has only 72.6kwh or the promise of EAP rolling out when it did not and still hasn't (auto-wipers are a standard feature).

Ironically, Volvo tries to use very specific and clear disclaimer language and the Court still rejects that (p. 4-6).

 

[banned-66611]

FSD may be more important to Tesla's success that other automakers' because of how much they've marketed FSD's future in their cars.

Marketed? I think you mean sold.

Quite simply I disagree. Consumer protection laws are not based on contract. Rather companies marketing to consumers bear the burden of clear communications and their misrepresentations, whether intentional or deceitful, create liability.

This. The statements on Tesla's web site and by their sales staff will be taken into account by courts.

It's not acceptable to lie to customers and then say the small print says "not really lol".

 

[Tam]

...It's not acceptable to lie to customers and then say the small print says "not really lol".

When going to court, it would ask if there are any asterisk/small prints/footnotes/disclosures.. that the plaintiff didn't read.

I can claim the "Free Parking" is a lie but the court would ask me did I continue to read the part "if validated by Tasteee Restaurant".

Many people were lied into signing for a subprime loan with NINJA (No Income, No Job, No Assets verification) and went to court to keep their homes. In most cases, if they admitted that the signatures were theirs then they still lose their homes even when said they were lied to and they didn't read the mortgage paperwork.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I would argue whether we believe Tesla would win or lose in court, in this thread, is more based where we stand on the Tesla-love-or-hate-o-meter than what the objective reality is. We're better off agreeing to disagree.

 

[banned-66611]

I forgot how bad consumer protection is in the US.

 

[Terminator857]

No. Tesla FSD is a mess and absurdly expensive.

...

 

[azred]

No. Tesla FSD is a mess and absurdly expensive.

And four years seems like yesterday.