Tesla's Use of the Term 'Autopilot' Irks U.S. DOT's Pete Buttigieg, But Not for Nothing

Tesla is arguably one of America’s most amazing modern industry successes. The brand did whatever was needed to survive and proved that change was possible in one of the world’s most conservative business sectors – the automotive one. Whilst some strategies may have been questionable along the way, Tesla not only fought and defeated every other player, but it also became the world’s most valuable automaker in the process.

Today, besides making and selling cars, the brand is also involved in the energy, utilities, insurance, and software domains where it attempts to champion the delivery of clean energy solutions for retail and commercial customers and collects unrivaled amounts of data for its constant improving products. Soon, it might even become a key player in the mining industry. It is, undoubtedly, a behemoth.

However, Tesla is known to have wronged many of its customers who bought its products. Since the Model 3 and Model Y have been introduced, many new owners have complained online about their units because of various problems. At one point, the whole situation got so bad that the “within spec” answer given by customer representatives to the unlucky buyers who noticed huge panel gaps or other build quality issues turned into a joke used by both Tesla fans and haters.

Besides that, the Full Self-Driving Beta brought along many doubts that Tesla could actually deliver on its promise to automate driving before others find the successful recipe. Many of Elon Musk’s wild promises did not help either.

There's (sort of) a silver lining

However, nobody can deny that Tesla accelerated the transition to zero-tailpipe emission vehicles. Yes, battery-electric cars currently come with a bigger carbon footprint than that internal combustion engine vehicles. But by not needing to burn fuel, a Model 3, for example, becomes much cleaner in the long run than a BMW 3 Series. Add the fact that guilt-free electricity is slowly becoming more common, and things are only looking more and more promising for BEVs.

Still, the Biden administration didn’t look so happy about what the automaker managed to do – a thing Elon Musk has been saying since America chose a new President. This became clearer last year when Joe Biden said that General Motors (GM) was the one domestic brand leading the EV charge. Anyone who is even remotely interested in the automotive sector knows that GM is a promising follower and not a leader in the space – for now.

But things took a turn for the better when Tesla announced that it would open around 7,500 Supercharging locations to other EV drivers through its “Magic Dock” solution. It looked like a better relationship was possible between the automaker and elected officials.

However, the NHTSA decided it was time to investigate all the problems customers reported and launched a thorough investigation into Autopilot and falling steering wheels. After the probing was extended, Tesla also announced that it won’t take any NEVI subsidies because it doesn’t want to install the standardized payment systems. The latest available approximations say that it has given up on $6 million.

Now, U.S. DOT’s Pete Buttigieg says publicly that Tesla’s use of the “Autopilot” term for its suite of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) lacks common sense. Critics have said in the past that the EV maker greatly exaggerated the system’s capabilities by hinting that it could take over at any time. Now, public officials are joining them in expressing the same thing.

“I wouldn’t call something ‘Autopilot’ if the manual explicitly says that you have to have your hands on the wheel and the eyes on the road all the time," said Buttigieg, according to Autonews.

The DOT isn't getting more involved

However, the official admitted that his department isn’t gunning after marketing ploys. But the Justice Department does and has subpoenaed the brand already. Admittedly, it hasn’t done so to stop the automaker from being very creative with its product naming strategy but to look at how both Autopilot and FSD Beta impacted a couple of unfortunate events. At the time of writing, Tesla has not been charged with any wrongdoing, even though the marque is involved in other two DOJ cases. If a charge is to be brought forward at some point… Well, it might take a while! The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine, right?

On the other hand, California has joined the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chief in thinking that Tesla doesn’t use proper naming for Autopilot and FSD Beta. Since the beginning of the current year, the automaker is breaking the law if it wishes to keep the names it has given to its ADAS suite. The state’s updated Vehicle Code now says that “a manufacturer or dealer shall not name any partial driving automation feature, or describe any partial driving automation feature in marketing materials, using language that implies or would otherwise lead a reasonable person to believe, that the feature allows the vehicle to function as an autonomous vehicle (…).”

Moreover, California has also defined what an autonomous vehicle is and is granting this title to cars that have at least an SAE Level 3 certification. Since Tesla’s best ADAS is FSD Beta and that’s an SAE Level 2 system. It doesn’t look like it can do much about it. The Golden State also made sure to not allow the automaker to enforce its absurd insurance policies on customers. That's why Californians don't have to worry about higher premiums if they drive more at night.

Even the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is worried about Autopilot and how Elon Musk presented it to prospective customers. That’s why it has started a separate investigation regarding various allegations the CEO has made about the ADAS.

And on top of all these things, there’s a class action lawsuit in the making that was announced in September 2021. The initiators want customers to join in if they feel that they were misled by the EV maker or if they encountered too many problems with the ADAS.

It may look bad, but it's not as worse as some may have imagined

Authorities worrying over what Tesla’s doing with Autopilot and FSD Beta is not, however, something exaggerated or unexpected. In the name of cost-cutting and increasing already generous profit margins, the automaker went against the industry trend and removed ultrasonic sensors from new cars and deactivated the ones in use on existing models. This goes against the industry standard which is to add more features and has understandably angered customers who must now deal with a camera-only system that may or may not work properly.

But it’s worth mentioning that in Germany – the country where Tesla was forced to drop the Autopilot name from its marketing materials in 2019 – a final ruling allowed the carmaker to use this term to describe its ADAS. South Korea, however, is maintaining its policy to limit Tesla from using the “Autopilot” term too much, but it’s unclear how this policy is being enforced. The Asian country fined the brand for misleading customers, but the penalty was applied for exaggerating the range, not controversial marketing.

Nonetheless, Tesla is still a very important player in the automotive industry. It has the means, the products, and the services to remain among the most important entities in the space. It may have exaggerated here and there a bit, but the progress is visible and its efforts to improve everything and continue expanding current operations are a sign that the company won’t stop from achieving its goals. It just has too many cooperating customers and enthusiastic investors to just flop like other auto brands who needed public funding to not close up shop.

Finally, don't forget Tesla itself said three years ago that FSD Beta "may do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road." Knowing this and the fact that FSD Beta is more capable than Autopilot, would you trust it to replace you? Or, you know, pay $15,000 for this software?