Unlike Tesla, which never seems to be held accountable for its serial lying and egregiously false representations, Uber is yet again facing penalties.
The second offense related to estimated taxi fares provided by the app to Sydney customers between June 2018 and August 2020, when the taxi ride option was abandoned.
The algorithm used to calculate the fare ranges inflated the taxi estimates. The actual taxi fare was almost always cheaper than Uber’s lowest estimate. Uber had not ensured the algorithm was accurate, the commission said.
Did not ensure the algorithm was accurate? Tesla’s inaccurate algorithm is killing people. At least Uber just stole some money. The first offense also was Uber lying to its customers.
Again, however, Tesla doesn’t seem to be in any trouble for all its lies that lead directly to deaths so it begs the question why regulators keep going after Uber.
In 2018 both Uber and Tesla had “self-driving” products that killed pedestrians. Guess which company shut down their program and faced extensive public and regulatory outrage, versus the other company that simply charged customers more for even less?
Regulating industry-laggard engineering practices of Tesla (documented as worse than even 1990s KIA in quality failures), let alone their inaccurate algorithms and deceptive business practices is an obvious requirement for market safety. That is probably why O’Dowd has started a campaign to do exactly that.
Putnam’s first ad for O’Dowd is dubbed “Unsafe at Any Speed,” an homage to the 1965 best-selling book by longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader. It opens with a brief disclaimer and an image of O’Dowd, who is identified by his company title. The ad then shifts to a nearly minutelong compilation of Tesla cars crashing and nearly veering into things, and includes audio of passengers and drivers dismayed by the seeming malfunctions.
O’Dowd is being reported as an outsider to politics, when he seems to be the only one running with the inside view of actual engineering and market safety. This would be like calling a doctor an outsider to politics when running on a healthcare reform ticket.