Hacker News Reader

They are still misreprenting their self-driving capabilities in their marketing materials:

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/autopilot?redirect=no

In the beginning of this video there's the caption "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."

If the lawyers in this lawsuit are any good they will have a field day with this.

It's only a comment for the situation on this video. I'm absolutely not an expert on this topic, but I guess there are places where it's true that the car itself can drive from one location to the other. But on the same page they wrote: "Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

That is pre-release full-self-driving software under test.

It is definitely NOT a feature that has been released to the public.

The traffic aware cruise control and self-steering features tesla has released to the public require your hands to be on the wheel. If you take your hands off the wheel you will get a small warning, then a larger warning and finally a huge alert.

By the way, if you show a pattern of ignoring alerts it will refuse to drive for you anymore.

That's not what I read in this article.

> Huang’s hands were detected on the steering wheel only 34 seconds during the last minute before impact.

If during the last minute before impact the hands were missing for any 26 seconds, then it makes no sense to say that they were missing for any 6 seconds. The 6 seconds can only be consecutive before the impact, right?

You are claiming that the accuracy of Telsas language is outrageously deceptive, using an outrageously made up example of deception: "six seconds prior to the collision = It is any six seconds before the crash"

"This is the kind of sketchiness that makes people wary of Tesla."

Its the kind of sketchiness that make me wary of the stuff people post about Tesla. If the driver had multiple warnings - about anything, any car company will mention that, there is nothing exceptionally sketchy about Tesla doing so. And that is all on which you based your incredible interpretation of "six seconds prior to". Its just an entirely made up accusation.

According to Tesla,

> the only way for this accident to have occurred is if Mr. Huang was not paying attention to the road [1]

Tesla has made a habit of drawing conclusions about investigations that have just begun. It is sketchy, and people have noticed.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-says-fatal-model-x-aut...

And how does that or the vaguely introduced link justify accusations of outrageous rhetorical trickery ?

I don't understand. What other theory are you proposing than that he wasn't paying attention?

According to the preliminary report from the NTSB,

> At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increased from 62 to 70.8 mph, with no precrash braking or evasive steering movement detected. [1]

This means the vehicle gave the driver less time to respond. I'd argue the manufacturer bears some responsibility.

[1] https://ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY1...

> I genuinely don't understand where their apparent need for pushing the definition of truth to its breaking point is coming from.

One theory is Musk has been misrepresenting the company's products for years in order to keep the valuation high, and he's now dug the hole so deep he can't find a way out.

> I genuinely don't understand

This can only make sense if you ignore all the weird, incoherent, inchoate, abusive, and absurd things that come out of Elon Musk.

I'm not even a Musk fan, but have you got refs for these? Worst I've seen is smoking a joint and misleading about having an investor they didn't have. I believe his opinion that Teslas only needing cameras bc that's all humans use to drive is incorrect but honest. I don't think he's mean, I think he's overly, conveniently idealistic to a point which needs to be corrected.

I guess you missed the bits where he called a rescue diver a pedophile, probably his worst. The guy has no control over what he says. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/musk-labe...

    > [...]misleading about having an investor
    > they didn't have[...]

It was a lot worse than that:

1. TSLA told the SEC Musk's personal Twitter fell under their purview.

2. SEC: OK, thanks!

3. Musk proceeded to talk shit on Twitter.

4. The SEC got upset, TSLA agreed to have all of Musk's investor-related musings reviewed before posting.

5. Musk proceeds to share investment-related musings on Twitter again without going through that process.

6. The SEC tightens the screws.

There's mistakes, and then there's dangerously infantile and reckless behavior from a CEO and the board.

It's not even about the specifics of what he said. How hard is it to have one Twitter account for your random musings and another one for investment commentary?

Or, hire a full-time small team of lawyers whose only job is to be constantly VNC'd into your phone and shut it down if you're about to violate the SEC's terms about your use of Twitter.

If only there had been some prior warning signs, I don't know, maybe the board having some actionable thing to work with earlier. Say, like Musk calling a worldwide hero "pedo guy" on Twitter a year earlier, which might suggest that maybe his impulsive use of social media should be reigned in?