Elon Musk’s and Tesla’s lies about the readiness of actual full self-driving cars is starting to catch up with them. A judge has just rejected the Austin, Texas-based automaker’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit that the company misled owners – tricking them into believing their vehicles would soon have self-driving capabilities. This is not to be confused with the poorly named “Full Self-Driving” program currently available on Teslas. Those cars are still on just a Level II autonomy system.
The proposed nationwide class action lawsuit all comes back to the 2016 video that falsely advertises what Autopilot and FSD can do, according to Reuters. It goes on to say that functional full self-driving is “just around the corner,” which enticed owners to pay more for the features.
Here’s a little more from Reuters on just what the lawsuit covers and who can be involved:
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in Sazn Francisco said owners could pursue negligence and fraud-based claims, to the extent they relied on Tesla’s representations regarding vehicles’ hardware and ability to drive coast-to-coast across the U.S.
Without ruling on the merits, Lin said that “if Tesla meant to convey that its hardware was sufficient to reach high or full automation, the plainly alleges sufficient falsity.”
In a slight win for Tesla, Judge Lin did dismiss some other claims in the case led by Thomas LoSavio. He’s a retired lawyer in California who says he paid an $US8,000 premium for Full Self-Driving capabilities on a Model S in 2017. Keep in mind, FSD once cost as much as $US15,000 before returning to its current $US8,000 pricetag. LoSavio says in the lawsuit that he believed the system would help make his driving safer if his reflexes were to deteriorate as he aged.
All these years later, and Tesla is still miles away from being “even remotely” able to produce a car that can drive itself completely, according to Reuters. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages for people who have bought or leased Teslas since 2016 with Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.
This has been a long time coming for Musk, Tesla and the folks who bought into this crap. Back in April of this year, Musk reaffirmed his desire for autonomy. Here’s what he said, and where the whole debacle currently stands, from Bloomberg:
Musk declared in April that Tesla is “going balls to the wall for autonomy” while committing the car maker to a next-generation, self-driving vehicle concept called the robotaxi. The billionaire entrepreneur has talked a big game about autonomy for over a decade, and has persuaded customers to pay thousands of dollars for its Full Self-Driving, or FSD, feature. The name is a misnomer — FSD requires constant supervision and doesn’t render vehicles autonomous — but Musk has repeatedly predicted it’s on the verge of measuring up to the branding.
Meanwhile, the company faces federal probes into whether defects in its Autopilot driver-assistance feature have contributed to fatal crashes, as well as regulatory investigations and lawsuits over claims that it has over-hyped its progress. Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into whether the EV maker’s recall of more than 2 million cars months earlier adequately addressed Autopilot safety risks.
In the past, Tesla has said Autopilot lets vehicles steer, accelerate and brake in their lanes, and Full Self-Driving lets vehicles actually obey traffic signals and change lanes. Folks, it looks like it’s changing lanes right into a courthouse. HEYO!
