I know, it seems paradoxical to talk about Tesla, the quintessential manufacturer of electric vehicles and therefore emission-free and smoke-free, precisely something that battery-powered vehicles intend to leave behind, as well as the still incipient and highly anticipated cars that are They are fueled with hydrogen, an option that, for many users, is the true alternative to the thermal engine, rather than electric ones, because the origin of said electricity can be (and in many cases is) highly polluting.
As I said, it may seem contradictory, but it is enough to review Tesla’s communication and marketing history a bit to realize that smoke is very, very present in the company’s image. From launches that supposedly will take place on a certain date (with the possibility of reserving them by making a small payment) but that turn out to be years delayed, while the company puts endless complications for users who want to cancel the reservation and get their money back , even functions with names that are misleading as to what they actually provide.
This is not a new topic, we have already addressed it both when talking about one of the many accidents suffered by a Tesla that had Autopilot mode activated, and when the company decided to extend the beta phase of its Full Self-Driving system to more drivers. Neither Autopilot is an autopilot nor does the system called Full Autonomous Driving actually offer full autonomous driving. Not to mention that Elon Musk promised, in early 2021, that Tesla would reach level 5 autonomous driving before the end of the year, a claim that was refuted by CJ Moore, Tesla’s director of autopilot software, in a meeting. with California state regulators.
We have already reflected on it on previous occasions, so I do not consider it necessary to dwell on it once more. Just a quick note: lying is not a good sales strategy, it may work at first, but sooner or later it will come back to haunt you. You can do it through dissatisfied customers, through those who could have been but decide not to be, through investors (who have had a somewhat complicated 2022, as shown in the graph above) and also through the authorities and regulators, who may end up getting tired.
Such is the case, as we can read in Gizmodo, of the regulators of the state of California, where as of January 1, 2023 the brand will no longer be able to market its service under the name Full Self-Driving, nor use any other nomenclature that leads the public to think that it is a fully autonomous vehicle when in reality it is not. Let’s remember that fully autonomous driving is only provided by level 5, and that Tesla, despite Musk’s promise of reaching that level late last year, is still at level 2.
It is somewhat sad, though, that action by regulators is necessary to put an end to these bad practices, which at best leave users with a bad taste in their mouths, and at worst make them trust more in these systems, with consequences that can be lethal, something that does not seem to worry the company as much as it should.
