I know, it seems paradoxical to talk about Tesla, the main manufacturer of electric vehicles, and therefore zero-emission and non-smoking, exactly something that battery cars intend to leave behind, as well as the still incipient and highly anticipated cars that are powered by hydrogen, which is a possibility, which for many users is a real alternative to heat engines, 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 you only need to look at Tesla’s communication and marketing history a bit to realize that smoke is very, very present in the company’s image. From launches that are said to take place on a certain date (with the possibility of booking with a small payment) but which turn out to be years delayed while the company puts endless complications for users who want to cancel their booking and get their money back, even features with titles, which are misleading as to what they actually provide.

This is not a new topic, we already addressed it when we talked about one of the many accidents suffered by Tesla that had the Autopilot mode activated and when the company decided to extend the beta phase of its Full Self-Driving system to more Drivers. Autopilot is not an autopilot, and even a system called Full Autonomous Driving does not actually offer fully autonomous driving. Not to mention that Elon Musk promised in early 2021 that Tesla would achieve Level 5 autonomous driving by the end of the year, a claim refuted by CJ Moore, Tesla’s director of Autopilot software, in a meeting with California state regulators. .

We have already reflected on this on previous occasions, so I do not consider it necessary to dwell on it again. Just a quick note: lying is not a good sales strategy, it may work at first but sooner or later it will backfire. You can do it through disgruntled customers, through those who could have been but chose not to be, through investors (who had a rather complicated 2022 as the chart above shows) and also through authorities and regulators who may end up getting tired.

Such is the case, as we can read in Gizmodo, the regulators of the state of California, where from January 1, 2023 the brand will no longer be able to offer its services under the name Full Self-Driving, nor use any other nomenclature that leads the public to believe that it is a fully autonomous vehicle, when in fact it is not. Recall that fully autonomous driving only provides level 5 and that Tesla, despite Musk’s promise to reach this level at the end of last year, is still at level 2.

However, it is rather sad that regulatory authorities have to intervene to put an end to these bad practices, which at best leave a bad taste in the mouths of users and at worst make them trust these systems more, which can have deadly consequences, something that does not concern society as it should.