Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode has been a major topic in the automotive space for the past few years, often in the spotlight amid a long list of lawsuits and investigations. But through all of the shortcomings and dangerous flaws, CEO Elon Musk has continued to make grandiose claims about FSD capabilities.
While there have been continued accusations against Full Self-Driving mode, including California’s demand that the misleading name be changed to “Autopilot,” Musk’s false claims became a larger part of the conversation after a father and son died inside a burning Tesla while using Full Self-Driving mode. The lawsuit stated: “Thousands of Tesla drivers have relied on Tesla’s [self-driving] technology as though it were capable of safe, fully autonomous self-driving with minor software updates when in fact it is incapable of safely handling a variety of routine roadway scenarios without driver input, and can become confused by a number of factors.”
However, despite continued exaggerations from Musk and Tesla as a whole, fans of the brand continue to support the concept of using false claims to boost sales. An official Tesla account recently retweeted a video claiming that a man with failing eyesight should drive a Cybertruck with FSD. Soon after, Tesla shared another story about a 93-year-old woman who can no longer drive, finding “freedom” with FSD. It should be noted that FSD must be supervised, with the driver ready to take over at any moment. And that moment may very well come, since Full Self-Driving mode has continued to prove dangerously inconsistent in a number of situations. Through it all, Tesla’s supporters keep claiming that they haven’t died in a fiery crash yet, so FSD is everything Musk says it is.
Tesla keeps getting defended for lying to its customers over something quite dangerous
Recently, someone decided to use the Wayback Machine to show a since-deleted blog post from Tesla’s website from 2016. Titled “All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware,” the blog post claims that HW2.5 and then later HW3 (a hardware for FSD that came out in 2019) were ready for autonomous driving. The blog post read: “We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory — including Model 3 — will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”
Yeah, that was back in 2016. Ten years later, and Full Self-Driving mode is still nowhere near autonomous capabilities. You would be playing with fate to even take your hands off the wheel. Yet here he was, a decade ago, telling his blind, trusting fans to believe their vehicles are fully autonomous.
I know I sound like one of those AI haters, but I am actually personally a huge fan of robotaxis. Oh, but only the truly autonomous ones. The idea of Musk letting loose a fleet of steering wheel-less Cybercabs that rely on Full Self-Driving mode to get victims around seems like a sci-fi horror movie. It’s been proven quite a few times that Tesla’s robotaxis (just Model Y’s using FSD) have more accidents than human drivers. By a lot. And they crash more than Waymo. Also by a lot.
At this point, I am just continuously baffled that Musk is able to make these asinine claims for 10 years without much legal trouble or societal backlash. The dude keeps claiming that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode can drive a blind man around, no problem. Is nobody outraged at being lied to? Is nobody horrified that there are vehicles on the road with drivers who believe FSD is fully capable of taking control? This seems like an alarming way to turn every commute to work into a potential death trap. Why is nobody stopping this from being allowed? Am I going crazy?
I must be, because Tesla’s fans did not care at all that the blog post blatantly lied about Full Self-Driving mode.
We have a classic example of “whataboutism” here: During those seven years, the tech has improved exponentially, where the car fully drives itself safer than humans while being watched. During this period, Ford and GM made even more grandiose promises than basically lied and pulled out and stopped updating, while Tesla remains committed.”
There is currently no data to support that Full Self-Driving mode operates a car better than a human. I found a Musk quote saying the latest update will make FSD “far exceed” human drivers, but there’s no actual data. In fact, Tesla has consistently withheld data that would provide further insight into how safe and functional FSD is. It wouldn’t surprise me if a Tesla fan found a way to make this seem like a good thing. Musk is just protecting our private data! Would that one work, guys? I guess it all doesn’t matter anyway, becasue Ford has apparently made an even bigger lie. So now who cares what Tesla does?
And here’s one of those “you just didn’t read between all of the lines and assume what the blog post secretly means” responses: “That post was for the original HW 2.0, which, along with HW2.5 and HW 3, were all said to be capable of autonomous driving with a future software download.”
Again, here we are, 10 years later… Guess this explains why Tesla enthusiasts are still saying to this day that Musk isn’t lying, since he’s clearly talking about the future FSD in some far-off fantasyland. Even though that’s not how he words his statements at all. Guess we are all just supposed to imply it. Yet Tesla keeps retweeting people who seem to think he’s talking about FSD now, willingly letting their elderly grandparents “drive” a Tesla to church. Which seems to indicate that the carmaker is acknowledging that there are some people out there who believe Musk that FSD is truly autonomous — and want to spread that message further.
Tesla fans, please just help me understand. Why is it okay for a carmaker to continuously claim this kind of stuff?
Said one frustrated Tesla owner on X: “Me: Then what did I pay for? Tesla: ‘You paid for the full self-drive capability.’ Capability. The ability. Not ‘supervised.’ Not ‘lite.’ The full capability. That’s not my word. That’s on my 2019 invoice.”
The real responses? It’s coming, Musk promised us that.
homer10 ROOKIE6 days ago
