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California Bans Misleading Self-Driving Advertising

Several prominent companies in the automotive industry, including GM, continue to advance the capabilities of self-driving vehicle technology, but for the moment, a fully autonomous self-driving system is currently not commercially available. Now, California is set to ban misleading advertising with regard to self-driving vehicles.

Back in September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1398, which prohibits a manufacturer or dealer from “deceptively naming, referring to, or marketing” a semi-autonomous driver assistance feature as fully self-driving. The bill applies to not only the sale of cars, but also feature updates and upgrades. The bill was sponsored by Democratic state senator Lena Gonzalez, and will go into effect on January 1st, 2023.

Semi-autonomous driving systems are considered systems that require human intervention at some point, while fully self-driving systems do not require any human inputs.

For the moment, the new law is directed primarily at Tesla, which offers customers its “Full Self-Driving” feature that still requires a human pilot to take control of the vehicle and does not make the vehicle fully autonomous, as indicated on Tesla’s website. The Tesla feature costs $15,000 as an optional upgrade, or $199 per month.

Cadillac Escalade equipped with Super Cruise

Cadillac Escalade equipped with Super Cruise

Meanwhile, GM offers the Super Cruise feature, which is framed as a semi-autonomous driver assist technology that can assume control of a vehicle on select stretches of North American highways. Initially hitting the market with the 2018 Cadillac CT6, the system has since expanded to several GM vehicles, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Bolt EV, Cadillac Lyriq, and GMC Hummer EV, among others.

GM is also currently working on the new GM Ultra Cruise system, which is set to join GM’s lineup of hands-free driver-assist systems as a next-generation feature. Ultra Cruise is expected to provide driver assistance in 95 percent of driving scenarios on two million roads in the U.S. and Canada, covering a total of 3.4 million miles. Ultra Cruise is set to launch in 2023.

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Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

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Comments

  1. California loved Elon musk till he bought twitter. Funny how commies eat their best friends so quickly

    Anyone ever learned anything from history???

    Reply
    1. I don’t agree with the man on everything but when he bought Twitter and when he voted republican everything went south.

      No tolerance to those who disagree with you. Tesla made electric cars more appealing. Wasn’t even mentioned with GM and Ford this year. Not that I’m a fan of Tesla or Elon Musk but it’s just so obvious.

      Reply
      1. Not going to reply, not sure I understand your comment

        Reply
        1. Karl…. That kills people

          Reply
    2. Simply not true, this was in the works for a LONG time especially in California because they have the highest concentration of Teslas in the world. This ban is super overdue and should be worldwide frankly. People are stupid and take “autopilot” to mean they can literally go to sleep in the vehicle.

      Reply
      1. It is true that they wouldn’t touch Elon, and stalled all legislation and lawsuits for him till last year, and then let the floodgates open and piled on everything they could. 100% political

        Reply
    3. Who uses the word commies anymore? LOL

      Reply
  2. Automated systems may end up being safer and more reliable than humans, there are however at least two big issues:
    1) Liability; who will be responsible when something goes wrong? The owner, the driver, the manufacturer, the software developer (generally an associated LLC), the last mechanic… Just seems like this could be a SShow.
    2) Humans are at their worst when monitoring a system that is 99.99% reliable but in that 0.01% failure event must take immediate and decisive action. This weakness has played out many times in trains and commercial aircraft.
    Personnally I think that the human operator must be consitantly involved in the operation, even if an automated system is checking and correcting or the automated system is so good that we are all comfortable with literally sleeping while it runs the show.

    Reply
    1. Automated systems have made us ignorant and complacent and are dangerous. They will contribute greatly to distracted driving especially by the young. I see young drivers driving at night without headlights or just their front running lights because they think the vehicle will do it for them. People rampantly run stop signs now because roundabouts have taught them that you only need to stop when another car is coming.

      Reply
  3. Yeah, ban the stupid GMC patty-cake commercial, how embarrassing.

    Reply
  4. I like Musk but he is getting deeper into do do each day. He is letting his mouth overload his a**hole. Tesla has pushed the entire automaking industry into an EV do or die fear. If Musk can run with Twitter he is sharper than an outhouse rat. Time will tell.

    Reply

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