Announcing features to be delivered later is common. Charging up front for those features with no delivery date is a bit less common.
In any case, should it not be made clear what the current capabilities of the car and system are as part of the advertising and purchase process?
That seems to be the issue that the court is discussing, not the premise that Tesla is pre-selling future autonomous capabilities that have not yet been delivered.
"The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself"
They also sell a package literally named "Full Self-Driving Capability"
Yes, they qualify it in smaller print, in the manual, on the website, etc. But the number of Youtube videos of people showing their car "driving itself" shows that there's definitely an implication that the car can almost drive itself and is constantly learning and getting better, reinforced by things said by Elon over the years.
It's not blatantly incorrect, but it does all combine to create a picture than can be misleading for someone who doesn't dig into the details. And misleading marketing is what is being discussed by the court.
Right, the video is a tech demo of FSD. Directly above - the first words on the page - are:
"All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future" (emphasis mine)
> They also sell a package literally named "Full Self-Driving Capability"
> an implication that the car can almost drive itself and is constantly learning and getting better
The car can almost drive itself, with driver supervision. On-ramp to off-ramp autopilot including lane changes and exits is real today. The car is constantly learning and getting better, we get neural network updates pushed to us that improve AP performance roughly monthly.
Frankly your arguments prove the opposite of your point -- I know what AP does, you know what AP does; where are all these plebs that are supposedly being hoodwinked?
In any case, should it not be made clear what the current capabilities of the car and system are as part of the advertising and purchase process?
That seems to be the issue that the court is discussing, not the premise that Tesla is pre-selling future autonomous capabilities that have not yet been delivered.