Tesla Finally Admits Its ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Self Driving’ Marketing is BS
Tesla has agreed to change its “Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving” feature names—at least in California. This misleading marketing wasn’t some cute PR; it was a blatant money grab that caused deaths. Yet a judge had to threaten to block Tesla from selling cars before it finally changed to more accurate wording.
Jeffrey Nissen was riding his motorcycle home from work when a Tesla in “autopilot mode” ran over him, trapping him beneath the EV and dragging him to death. He was 28. His family is suing the automaker. Their lawyer pointed out, “If you market it as full self-driving and have the owner of the company say you can drive this from coast to coast without ever touching the wheel, that’s a problem.”
Tesla’s lawyers were downright dismissive. Their argument? No reasonable buyer would ever think a Tesla could drive itself. Forget that’s literally what it says on the box, boasting of features such as “Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving.”
While the lawyers insisted “Autopilot” and “Full Self Driving” are just marketing terms, CEO Elon Musk doubled down. He’s called his cars “semi-sentient robots on wheels.”
Why? The best case scenario is that Musk rightly believes investors will throw more money at a robotics company than a car company. So these feature names are an attempt to mislead investors who will never buy a car.
The worst-case scenario is that these feature names are intended to mislead buyers and sell more cars. That would be prioritizing profits over the lives of Nissen and the many other victims of Tesla crashes.
Tesla Autopilot has been linked to dozens of deaths. Experts even warned, “People are going to jail.” But as Electrek later revealed, the automaker withheld data and misdirected police investigating Autopilot crashes.
California finally called BS on Tesla’s “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” feature names
Last December, a California judge ruled, “A reasonable consumer likely would believe that a vehicle with Full Self-Driving Capability can travel safely without a human driver’s constant, undivided attention.” He specified, “This belief is wrong — both as a technological matter and as a legal matter — which makes the name Full Self-Driving Capability misleading.”
This gave the state the authority to block Tesla from selling any more vehicles immediately. But when Tesla insisted, “Not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem,” the state gave it 60 days to mount a defense. Never mind that victims such as Nissen couldn’t come forward because many of them are dead.
Instead of putting together a counter-argument, Tesla kept the misleading feature names for every last minute possible. It finally announced it would change them exactly 60 days later. Tesla fans applauded the move and predicted a stock surge after the company wisely “secured” the California market with its rebranding.
