- Long overdue, IMO.
- Honestly, the slowest actor here was the regulator. If the name “Full Self-Driving” was unacceptable, they could have stopped it years ago.
“Autopilot” is already a technical aviation term — planes don’t fly themselves while the pilot sleeps — so the misunderstanding comes from the public, not the term.
And without a legal framework defining responsibility for autonomous systems, the liability naturally falls back to the human who activates the feature.
So the root issue isn’t the marketing; it’s the regulatory vacuum that let the ambiguity persist.
(Just my impression as a non-expert observer.)
- I'm annoyed by the stay, but I'm more annoyed that the desired penalty is just a 30 day suspension. No fine, no refunds for sales made under false pretenses.