As such, it's been roughly 12 years just around the corner for Tesla and Musk enthusiasts.
To be more specific: Musk explicitly said in that marketing event that buying anything other the Tesla wouldn't make economic sense, as they'll earn their own price back as self driving Taxis within the following two years.
Still blows my mind that people believed him anything as these kinds of unrealistic promises were at the heart of every event since the start.
Believing someone with promises like that is - from my perspective - begging to get scammed.
From that point of view, people should be glad the delivered cars were decent. Most purchases with outlandish promises end with merchandise that is borderline unusable.
As an 11 years Toyota driver I agree.
It’s for traffic jams, and only usable in them. There’s not a big legal liability when the biggest risk is probably a fender bender.
And geofenced to specific highways, only during the day and during good weather.
It's still cool (to me at least). But it's bizarre seeing people dismiss FSD as being the same as adaptive cruise control while touting Mercede's Drive Pilot. Drive Pilot is a lot closer to adaptive cruise control than FSD.
It's unfortunate that there's so much misinformation that gets thrown around whenever this topic comes up.
Tesla will not - it will blame the human driver for not paying attention. That's the difference.
Tesla would love to offer the reassurance to buyers but there’s a reason they haven’t done so: they’d lose money on it.
Has no one watched Fight Club and heard the anecdote about how a company will only recall a car if the cost of the recall is lower than the cost of settling all the lawsuits? All this guarantee tells us is that Mercedes did a similar calculation. Taking legal liability is not proof the car is safe. It is proof that they think the value of customers thinking the car is safe is more valuable than the cost of paying out settlements. Tesla not making the guarantee does not prove their cars are unsafe. It is evidence that if they did the same calculation, that got a different result. Maybe that is because the car is more dangerous, but it could also just be a different marketing philosophy and Tesla notably does not approach marketing like most other car companies.
The conclusion that you reached in which the Mercedes is safer than the Tesla is valuable to Mercedes and that opinion was indirectly purchased by Mercedes paying out legal settlements.
The precedents set in that case mean that the liabilities arising out of legal action based on 'strict liability' are likely to be extremely punitive (these days, well upwards of the $147M awarded against Ford in 1980, and into the billions). Any company that did not factor such a payment in their calculation in addition to the indirect costs of reputational damage, deserves everything they get. I doubt this is the case with Mercedes.
One question I do have that perhaps someone here will know - is the Mercedes guarantee limited to certain locales? e.g. Germany only as the roads there are in good condition and well marked? (I'm assuming here).
Think about it like this: company A says “our government product is military-grade. We have a 1 year warranty.” while company B also says their product is tough but offers a 5 year warranty. Which one do you think has better data supporting the durability of their product?
Money talks, as it were.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1cpwir3/te...
So which company of the two is the one endangering people
> DRIVE PILOT can be activated in heavy traffic jams at a speed of 40 MPH or less on a pre-defined freeway network approved by Mercedes-Benz. DRIVE PILOT operates in daytime lighting conditions when inclement weather is not present and in areas where there is not a construction zone. Please refer to the Operator’s Manual for a full list of conditions required for DRIVE PILOT.
Only on select freeways and only under 40 mph (and only during daytime with good weather conditions) sounds like it wouldn't be particularly useful.
Still, the tech is cool, and moving in the right direction. It's just always hard to really tell the state of things without doing some digging, because there's a ton of misinformation that gets thrown about whenever this topic comes up.
Even if you were to take Mobileye's definitions, it would still be equivalent to other companies at best (hands off, eyes on).
It’s fair to argue that FSD is limited as well but I believe their approach is much more scalable.
FSD, in the states, works on approximately every street, parking lot/garage, etc.
If it's full self driving, then I assume that Tesla is paying for your insurance and taking all responsibility for any crashes it causes in your car?
Did it also drive itself back to your home empty?
How impressive it is depends on where you live.
No, it could not.
I owned a Model 3 with FSD. I own a Mach-E with BlueCruise. They're equivalent for the majority of drives I've done.
Compared to "FSD this year", every year for the past five years, I honestly find the approach pretty refreshing.