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Lawsuit over FSD claims allowed to proceed
- Thread starter 2101Guy
- Start date
rxlawdude
Active Member
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Likewise, Diaper Genie needs to refund all their customers who have not been granted wishes.
McDonalds needs to refund all Happy Meal buyers whose mood did not improve.
Radio Flyer needs to refund everyone since their wagons neither receive radio NOR fly.
Southwest owes a lot of refunds as they sometimes fly north.
....orrrrrrrrrrr.... people understand product names are not always literal. Especially when for say FSD a specific description of their features is included during the ordering process making it clear what it does, and does not, actually do.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
By this logic you could sell something called Full Electric Vehicle that's actually a hybrid.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
You mean like Toyota did when they were advertising their "self charging" hybrids?
Also, since folks complain about the Autopilot name- did you know it was originally used by Chrysler? In 1958? It was the name of their dumb cruise control system.
How is the plaintiff going to prove what an advisor told him? Other wise it’s just heresy and The contract is the only real evidence. Musk tweets maybe, but I don’t think that is gonna hold up on court.
rxlawdude
Active Member
I dunno about heresy, but it would be hearsay.
That’s not what He (Elon) would say....I dunno about heresy, but it would be hearsay.
Daniel in SD
(supervised)
At least the car is technically self-charging though I admit that makes it sound like some sort of perpetual motion machine. Is Toyota still advertising that way? I take it that they got a lot of criticism.
Autopilot is much less clearly defined for cars than self-driving which before FSD meant a car capable of driving itself. It just seems deceptive to take a term that already exists, add "Full" to the front of it and then say what you actually mean is "Not."
GM used the term autopilot in 1956 for a future self-driving system:
2 applicants means they have a corroborating witness & civil cases are ‘balance of probabilities’ not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ (this is of course separate to Elon tweets & public statements & past statements made on Tesla’s website & marketing videos)
I've never had an issue with the name autopilot. I'm not a pilot, but I have a basic understanding of what autopilot in avionics does, and it seems the systems are comparable.
But this thread is about FSD. And I hate to admit it but I think that it could very well have a legal standing. Elon's comments throughout the years leave very little open to interpretation, and the fact is that they didn't deliver. The name FSD implies self driving, self driving implies a lot; including the car taking over liability, or eventually being able to take over liability.
It seems with FSD, and the current hardware, we should get a highly advanced ADAS eventually. But robo-taxies aren't happening on current hardware, despite Elon making very clear and unambiguous claims about that in order to sell cars.
Selfishly I don't want these cases to go anywhere. I'd like Tesla to focus on building what they can. But I think we shouldn't forget about the people who spent thousands of dollars over the past 4 years, who are unlikely to get what they were promised.
For me, I'm fine with robo-taxies not happening, and I'd feel fine with paying $10k for an advanced, low-to-no disengagement ADAS, yet not being able to sleep in the back of my car (while its driving). But I had the benefit of making that choice after seeing where Tesla was at with their peomises made in 2017. The people back then didn't have the benefit of hindsight. I personally think they got screwed.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Why?
Why is the literal name any more binding than the numerous other products I mention who aren't literally the dictionary definition of the words in the product name?
His comments are generally forward looking aspirations- not promises about the thing you are buying today but instead "What we hope a future version will do"
So do lots of marketing names for products- but again we don't hold them to that degree of literality- especially when the actual function and features are spelled out during purchase to the buyer
Do you have any legal evidence that'd stand up in court proving they can't happen on existing cars? Or just "The guy guessing about target dates missed his earlier target dates"?
(Note- I'm not even saying they WILL get to L4+ driving on current cars- I'm saying I don't see anything that'd act as legal PROOF THEY CAN'T yet)
Bear in mind the 2017 FSD buyers paid as little as 2-3k for FSD--- not 10k.
And they've at least gotten a free HW3 upgrade out of the deal so far (plus the updated visualizations, and the stopsign/stoplight stuff- and, eventually, L2 city streets)
Elon stated unequivocally, multiple times, that the cars being manufactured had all of the hardware required for L5 autonomous driving. Also anything he says about robo-taxies implies at least L4. The name "FSD" doesn't matter since he spelled out specific functionality that the car would be able to perform without a driver present: namely, "all of it".
It's very clear that driverless Teslas aren't going to happen with current hardware. The beta videos, while impressive in so many ways, demonstrate some disheartening perception deficits. The cars need better, and better placed, cameras. The cars also need more compute power than even HW3, as evidence of the fact that they've cannibalized the redundant compute nodes to power the FSD beta.
The released features of FSD that were advertised in a serious manner are called a "party trick" by the CEO and drive cars into obstacles. People on this very forum say those situations are the driver's fault (???) which is its special kind of Insanity IMO.
Navigate On Autopilot also doesn't work very well at all, and most people recognize that too.
Knowing ahead of time that Elon likes to say things that are "optimistic" at best and "unknowable" at worst isn't something that's reasonable to assume a buyer would have known. To lay people, Elon is seen as an expert in the fields he participates in; why should people have known to disregard his timelines and promises as "optimistic"?
rxlawdude
Active Member
Actually, the standard is "preponderance of evidence" - 50% certainty plus a feather.
rxlawdude
Active Member
Find the word "autnomous" in any Elon tweet. Feel free to post it here. Elon has talked about "FSD" but to my knowledge, has never used autonomous full self driving. There is a difference. The cars, with current hardware, can steer, accelerate, and brake on their own, so "L2 Everywhere" would meet that - just requiring a driver ready to take over when the system can't handle an edge case. And, of course, all liability being the driver's.
That said, I purchased FSD for our '17 M3 prior to the change in language about FSD. If Tesla finally concludes the current hardware cannot do autonomous full self driving, purchasers might expect some compensation. (Our MY had FSD added in June 2020, so L2 Everywhere is what I reasonably expect for that vehicle.)
This FSD thing kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Fake it till ya make it. Crowd funding their research and development in hopes of a return. Tesla sells real and great cars. The FSD thing is a whole other grey area mess.
Not sure if he specifically used the word "autonomous", but he did tweet quite a few times over the last 2 years about robo taxi. He also said we'll have cross country summon. I would think he meant the cars will be full autonomous in all of those tweets, unless a robo taxi needs a monitor all the time?
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