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I wonder if they could try to switch to something like "Fully-assisted Self Driving" to keep the original FSD accronym, if the term ends up being regulated.


Use of an acronym requires a prior use of a relevant definition (spell out), which is the term. The expression "Fully-assisted Self Driving" is no less incorrect / ambiguous than the original one. Therefore, Tesla would continue violating the same principle of truth and clarity in advertising as well as, perhaps, some policies and/or laws.


Not to mention the Term “Full Self Driving” was originally created to disambiguate “self driving”, which may still require driver assistance. FSD was sold as a robotaxi software that could make you money while you sleep, while it has always been nothing more than a level 2 system, as Tesla admits in the fine print and to regulators. Musk on Twitter contradicts this consistently.


FSD also mentioned/implied that driver assistance could be required, but did mention/omply that it should be good enough for someone to take a trip without intervention. Practically speaking it's just a larger feature set than EAP/AP.

Edit - Here's a link to the old FSD fine print. They say the system is designed to take trips with no input from the driver, but they don't guarantee that, which to implies FSD is just meant to be good level 2 driver assistance.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180806143159/https://www.tesla...

To be fair, Tesla could consider stuff like TACC to be level 3+ (no beta status, no disclaimer about always paying attention, etc), but it's definitely not level 4 because they require driver input and nag then disable without it.

The robotaxi/Tesla network idea was separate from EAP/AP and FSD and was only mentioned on the Tesla website for a short period of time with even more fine print/legalese (it was pie in the sky, which I imagine is why they took it down).


To be clear I mean the term “Full Self Driving” as opposed to the product Tesla is selling.




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