"Tesla Full Self Driving (Supervised)" - Clunky Name or Clever Name?

Here's why it's a genius move to rename Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) to "Full Self Driving (Supervised)."


Tesla's Model 3 is second best selling electric car, second to Tesla's own Model Y - Photo Courtesy of Tesla.


For the longest time, I've known the real issue with FSD is that it was poorly named. Tesla’s new names for their automated driving programs are either really clunky or really genius. I'm going with genius. 


Names Matter


The new name for FSD is Full Self-Driving (Supervised), in response to regulatory pressure, especially in California. Many people believe that the name Full Self-Driving is misleading, and when you compare it to other automakers, that conclusion does ring true.


For example, General Motors, in many of their vehicles, including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC have something called Super Cruise. It's a name brand, but it's also essentially a self-driving feature. The car steers, accelerates, and brakes on its own, but you have to be paying attention - the vehicle itself monitors your face to make sure that you are paying attention. 


Cruise Control Plus


Super Cruise is well named because it gives you the idea that it is exactly what it is - enhanced cruise control. Same with Volvo and other features called Pilot Assist or Nissan's Pro Pilot Assist. These things vary in their level of "self-driving," but, at the end of the day, they are all driving enhancement features. Ford’s name for automated cruise control is Blue Cruise.  Again, this name communicates the idea that the car isn’t fully driving itself, but is an enhanced variation on cruise control that allows the car to automate many of the traditional driving tasks, especially on a long trip.





New Slang


So the genius about Tesla’s name is that they are renaming Autopilot to Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC), and they’re moving away from the controversial Autopilot, which again, gives the idea that the car is fully in control. Traffic Aware Cruise Control hits on several things, such as it works in traffic, and it’s a cruise control. Everyone knows what cruise control is, but this is like telling the buyer, "In traffic, it’s going to drive itself, basically…" Many new cars have low-speed automated cruise control as part of an adaptive cruise control feature. 


The reason Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is smart is that people are still going to call it "Full Self-Driving." Colloquially, many people use terms that aren’t fully accurate. For example, if someone says, "I have an electric Mustang," you know what they mean is an electric Ford Mustang Mach-E. They don’t have to say all of that for you to know what they mean. When you hear "electric Mustang," you know what they mean.


Therefore, most people are going to refer to Tesla’s FSD (Supervised) as simply "Full Self-Driving" because we often do that with many things, we shorten the name. We call a BMW 320 or a BMW 535i simply a "five series," or we call it a "three series." This is common in the car world.


So, although Full Self-Driving (Supervised) seems clunky, it could actually be kind of a brilliant move on Tesla’s part. 


-Brian Moody

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