Tesla does a rare ad, and it's pathetically misleading

## Tesla does a rare ad, and it's pathetically misleading Tesla is slowly starting to advertise, and it has now done a rare ad on a billboard in Los Angeles. It’s pathetically misleading about its “self-driving” capabilities. Just last month, Tesla was in court in California being sued by the DMV over its alleged misleading communications around its ‘Autopilot’ and ‘Full Self-Driving’ advanced driver assist (ADAS) systems. The judge hasn’t released their verdict on this case yet, but Tesla doesn’t seem deterred whatsoever. At their North Hollywood location, Tesla put up a billboard advertising demo drives for its ‘Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised’ system: The billboard beautifully illustrates Tesla’s approach to its FSD system. When it’s time to market and sell the system, Tesla emphasizes the “Full Self-Driving” part. Still, when it’s time to take responsability, like in a court room after a crash for example, then Tesla focuses on the “supervised” part and shout loud and clear that its “Full Self-Driving” system is not an autonomous driving system but a level 2 driver assistance system just like a cruise control and the driver is always responsible. On the billboard, Tesla wrote the ‘supervised’ part more than twice as small as the “Experience Full Self-Driving” part: Interestingly, the ad appears to feature an old Model 3 interior, but the advertised feature is “Full Self-Driving” with demo drives, which aligns with Tesla’s strategy to promote its $8,000 Full Self-Driving package. Despite its name, the system is not fully self-driving. It is considered a level 2 driver assistance system as the driver is always responsible for the vehicle, unlike level 3-5 autonomous systems. Tesla has been promising that it will become “unsupervised” in the future through new software update, but CEO Elon Musk said it would happen by the end of every year for the last 6 years and it never happened. The current best data available, since Tesla doesn’t release any, indicates that Tesla’s most advanced publicly available Full Self-Driving Supervised update, FSD 13.9, achieves approximately 340 miles between critical disengagements. According to NHTSA, humans drive about 700,000 miles between crashes. #### Electrek’s Take One of the main criticisms of Tesla in its self-driving approach has always been: is it doing enough to prevent people from becoming overconfident and abusing its ADAS systems? I think the answer to that question is a clear no, and this billboard is a beautiful illustration of that. Whenever it’s time to market the feature, it’s always about the promise of full self-driving, and whenever it’s time to take responsibilities, FSD is just a poor little level 2 ADAS system. It’s becoming old.

It's totally not their fault your glasses aren't strong enough to read the "supervised" part. Coming soon ... Cyberglasses by Tesla

Looking forward to the judges decision in the California Tesla vs. DMV case...

Being misleading is their business model

Just as a small point on the "Tesla is slowly starting to advertise" bit; Tesla has advertised a lot, just not using actual ads. Ignoring musk being a walking billboard, Teslas were featured in a lot of 2010's shows and films, not just in the background but often mentioned by name and in some cases even being part of the plot. Silicon Valley, Suits and Succession come to mind, I am sure there are more.

You misspelled “predictably.” And badly.

Tesla is pathetic.

That can’t be real. Why the hell would anyone advertise that? Doesn’t California already have Waymo?

Also, funding the ecosystem of blogs and influencers.

Is that just a screengrab from YT??

This billboard in the courtroom has the font size reversed.

Burn your fucking retinas out.

Fred ain’t driving from Montreal to LA. He’d be black bagged before he got to Buffalo and in El Salvador by morning.

Schroedinger’s FSD

All those paid influencers on social media

A lot of the dipshits in r/selfdriving still love Elon. The boot licking there is absolutely amazing and terrifying at the same time.

Where the fuck are the hands on the wheel?

I have a memory of Musk saying something like it would be out of 'supervised' within a few months. Sometime last year?

Very minor point, but you are describing activities that are considered "marketing" but not "advertising." Product placement is marketing. Amazon sponsoring a remake of War of the Worlds featuring Amazon is marketing. Having a hagiographer write Elon Musk's biography is marketing. Elon talking about Mars and cars and whatever else in interviews is marketing. Planting stories in the business press is marketing. Paying influencers is marketing. Advertising is also marketing, it's just a very specific type of marketing that involves placing explicit advertisements in media consumed by the market for Tesla. ——— But all that being said, I totally support what I believe you are saying: Elon loves to brag that Tesla does no advertising as if the cars fly out of the showrooms powered only by word of mouth and the raw, naked desirability of his econoboxes. But in reality, not advertising is irrelevant if you have other ways of marketing the product.

Interesting point regarding tesla being in the position of simultaneously backing two forking arguments. Yes are cars are safe - they are fully autonomous - we have person in passenger seat but they are not needed. You are in accident - kill someone else or yourself due to not supervising the FSD 100% of the time - well thats your fault. The cars are not fully autonomous. I understand hardware and software are evolving and cybercabs are ahead of ver publicly available - but this argument is getting more and more nuanced, confusing and difficult to defend. They are walking a tightrope of fine print.

[https://news.euroncap.com/safercars/tesla-model-s---euro-ncap-2025-assisted-driving-results---moderate-grading/s/e601c687-8d61-4569-aa8c-9f377a957e9a](https://news.euroncap.com/safercars/tesla-model-s---euro-ncap-2025-assisted-driving-results---moderate-grading/s/e601c687-8d61-4569-aa8c-9f377a957e9a)

Tesla could be the world leaders in self driving and I still wouldn't buy one with this board at the table.

>FSD 13.9, achieves approximately 340 miles between **critical disengagements**. >According to NHTSA, humans drive about 700,000 miles between crashes Question? What are "critical disengagements"? Is that where the vehicle is going to crash *unless* the operator (I don't think the person in the driver's seat is 'driving') intervenes? Because if someone had to intervene in order to prevent me crashing every 340 miles, I'd be handing my license back.

Honestly the people that support this guy are out of their minds...

Damn, not too bright, that's definitely going to be used in court against them.

No they shouldn’t be allowed to use FSD and Supervised in the same statement. Let alone used smaller text for the most important part! Cyber glasses oh my can you imagine the carnage there. New Cyber Glasses with Octafocal lenses. There’d be a paragraph of small print in the subject header!

I remember him saying when I bought my TM3 in 2019 that my car would be more valuable in 2020 because of the money it would be generating for me as an autonomous taxi.

Why do they like to do this half truth stuff it's weird no one is seeing it.

When Tesla began, its first car, the Roadster was seriously flawed. It used a two speed transmission, which never worked right, the air-cooled batteries were a problem, and the analog control system was constantly problematic and did not scale well to other designs. There were also many problems with the Lotus chassis, but using that was never intended to be long-term. Elon make hard choices to correct everything - disabling the transmission (making it only one gear) then replacing it. Then they converted the design from analog to digital and designed the whole car around the battery at considerable time and expense to get the Model S out, which was a huge success. Now, they have vested billions in a vision-only driving automation, which is inherently limited. The rationale was that human drivers had limited visibility and attention span, and a car with 360º visibility and constant attention would be better. While true, it appears to be inadequate to meet the needs of the market, and others such as Waymo have gone beyond Tesla with systems that, while more expensive, now have a much better track record. Tesla FSD is no longer competing with human drivers, and they have lost the perception of being 'better enough.' Unlike the early days, when they could bet the company on an overhaul of design because their investment (installed base) was tiny, they now are too vested in a design that permeates the product line and their huge customer base. Steve Jobs would have seen this problem and started over, as he did with the Macintosh (Lisa) and again with NeXt, which became the new Mac, iPod, iPhone. Elon may not have the means and/or the will to do the same.