Tesla wins Autopilot, FSD 'misleading' marketing lawsuit in Germany

Tesla was being sued for the use of 'Autopilot' and 'Full self-driving' terms

InsideEVs.com

In 2020, a Munich court ruled that Tesla used misleading marketing tactics in Germany by using the words "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" for its driver-assist features. The lawsuit was filed by Wettbewerbszentrale (Competition Center), a network of German companies and one of the largest, most influential national self-regulatory institutions.

The allegation was that Tesla’s use of the words “Autopilot included” in its vehicles was false advertising since the car still requires the driver to operate and stay vigilant. It was also alleged that Tesla's Full Self-Driving suite was misleading marketing.

In October of 2021, Tesla appealed the court’s ruling in the Higher Regional Court of Munich, which ruled in Tesla’s favor. The decision was only made public recently, according to TeslaMag.de, an industry insider who was able to confirm the verdict.

This was an important victory for Tesla, as the Competition Center wanted to ban the company’s use of words like “Autopilot” in its marketing. This suggestion was rejected by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, which said that anybody visiting Tesla’s website to purchase an electric vehicle is suitably informed that the product is not fully autonomous.

Despite Tesla's overall win, the court ruled that the company would have to modify some language on its official website in Germany when referring to its vehicles’ upcoming features. Full Self Driving, for example, would have to be listed with an estimated availability rather than “by the end of the year.” More specifically, the feature language can't just read "coming soon," "next up," or "by the end of the year."

Instead, there has to be a date that Tesla expects the feature to be available to its customers. This was only a small win for the Competition Center which initially wanted to ban what they called misleading language on the company website.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles also initiated legal action against Tesla over the company's use of the words “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” for its driver-assist features. The legal action is aimed at preventing the misuse of new vehicle technologies. Tesla’s successful appeal in Germany is hopefully a sign that they will be equally successful in the United States.

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Musk Teases New Model for Early 2025 That Will Use a Mix of Next-Gen and Current Platforms

“We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025”. This was one of the key sentences that were part of Tesla’s deck shared on Tuesday directly before its financial results.

Since Reuters’ report a few weeks ago saying Tesla had “scrapped” the highly expected cheaper model— which Elon quickly denied on X —retail and institutional shareholders started asking for more details on Tesla’s product roadmap for 2024 and beyond.

In the earnings conference call, Elon Musk reiterated that Tesla expects to launch the next model in “early 2025, if not late this year”.

“We've updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of previously mentioned start of production in the second half of 2025. So, we expect it to be more like the early 2025, if not late this year. “

Over concerns of temporary production halts to update the factories for these new models, Musk said that Tesla will produce new models with certain aspects from their next-generation platform and current models. This will reduce the number of changes needed on production lines and allow Tesla not only to ramp up production faster but also to get the vehicles to market quicker.

Model Y Redesign

Tesla appears to hit that their next-gen vehicle will be less “next-gen” than they were initially aiming for, but to get a new vehicle out the door by late 2024, the process would already have to be in motion. Tesla may likely be referring to the redesigned Model Y, which is expected to reuse many parts from the new Model 3. Earlier this year, Tesla said that the redesigned Model Y will not be released this year, so it makes sense that they’re looking to speed up that production.

Tesla CEO concluded by saying that these measures will allow Tesla to reach a capacity of over 3 million units. Tesla produced 1.84 million vehicles in 2023. However, this year they’re ramping up Cybertruck production and introduced the new Model 3 into new markets.

And we think this should allow us to get to over 3 million vehicles of capacity when realized to the full extent.

Tesla reported on Tuesday its earnings results followed by a conference call where it teased its upcoming Robotaxi and its next-generation platform saying its “purpose-built Robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary ‘unboxed’ manufacturing strategy”.

Earlier in the day, Tesla announced the new Performance variant of its sedan Model 3 with deliveries in the United States starting already next month. The new version starts at $45,490 (after applying the $7,500 Federal EV tax credit) and goes from 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds.

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Tesla on FSD: Close to License Deal With Major Automaker, Announces Miles Driven on FSD v12

On Tuesday Tesla reported its earnings results followed by a conference call that brought several updates on the company’s roadmap for future vehicles, autonomous driving, Optimus and much more.

While answering a question from Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney about updates on the licensing of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, Elon Musk said they’re talking to one major auto manufacturer and there’s “a good chance” the company signs the first deal before year-end. However, he went on to say that it would probably be three years before the necessary changes are integrated into the car.

I think we have a good chance we do sign a deal this year

Brings Benefits to Tesla

The technology would require other automakers to start using the same cameras and hardware as Tesla, meaning that Tesla may not only generate money from licensing FSD but also from selling the hardware itself. However, there would be other benefits as well. When licensing FSD, Tesla would likely own the data gathered with the system well, further helping them with data and edge cases that need to be solved to reach full autonomy.

people don't understand all cars will need to be smart cars… Once that becomes obvious, I think licensing becomes not optional.

Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja commented pointing out that future partners “take a lot of time in their product life cycle” resulting in a gap between the deal signing and the arrival in the market of Tesla’s FSD software.

Miles Driven With FSD

On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles that have been driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.

Tesla said it will continue to increase its “core AI infrastructure capacity in the coming months” adding that in the first quarter, it completed the transition to hardware 4.0 with China now receiving the upgraded FSD computer and cameras.

Over the weekend, Tesla reduced the price of FSD dropping it from $12,000 to $8,000 for customers in the United States and from CA$16,000 to CA$11,000 in Canada.

Earlier this month, Tesla implemented a 50% price reduction for FSD subscriptions in the U.S. and introduced the subscription model in Canada at a great value of CA$99 per month.

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