Tesla sued for false autopilot, FSD software advertising

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A new lawsuit has been filed today against Tesla and its sophisticated driver assistance technology.

A complaint filed on Wednesday in the California Northern District Court revealed that Tesla's ADAS technology costs its owners thousands of dollars each year by causing cars to veer into oncoming traffic, miss turns, and run red lights.

Autopilot, an ADAS, is included as standard equipment in Tesla vehicles. Owners can, however, pay a fee to update the system to a version with extra functionality. Additionally, Tesla offers the so-called Full Self-Driving software and Enhanced Autopilot. FSD is now $15,000 and is still going up in price.

Briggs Matsko, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he paid $5,000 for his 2018 Tesla Model X to get Enhanced Autopilot.

The complaint claims that since 2016, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been falsely portraying their ADAS technology as completely functional or almost "solved", despite knowing full well that the real-world performance of Autopilot and FSD falls short of the hype.

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“Although these promises have proven false time and time again, Tesla and Musk have continued making them to generate media attention, to deceive consumers into believing it has unrivaled cutting-edge technology, and to establish itself as a leading player in the fast-growing electric vehicle market,” the lawsuit read.

This action comes after a number of other grievances and accusations, as well as more interest and inquiries from state and federal agencies.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles charged Tesla in July for misrepresenting the features of its Autopilot and FSD systems. As part of an ongoing investigation into the 830,000 Teslas with Autopilot, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested additional information from the EV manufacturer about its cabin camera last month.

Autopilot flaws

The NHTSA is looking into 16 collisions in which Tesla drivers may have used the ADAS before colliding with parked emergency vehicles.

A Tesla Model 3 owner sued the firm at the end of August, claiming that an Autopilot flaw led to unintentional braking. A jury will hear testimony in February over who was at fault in a 2019 crash involving Autopilot that killed a father of three, according to a date just set by a court in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Similar to Matsko's class action lawsuit, the promises made by Tesla and Musk to devoted followers and the branding of the systems that lull drivers into a false sense of security and inattentiveness are the main issues at stake in the lineup of Tesla lawsuits, not even necessarily the capabilities of the technology.

Tesla's Autopilot is billed as having features like lane assist and traffic-aware cruise control. Enhanced Autopilot features automatic lane changes, Navigate, which actively directs a car from an on-ramp to an off-ramp on a highway, and Smart Summon, which is designed to find a driver's car in challenging situations and parking places.

All of the above and more, including identifying stop signs and traffic lights and automatically slowing a car to a stop on approach, are all said to be capabilities of the beta version of FSD, which is currently active in around 100,000 vehicles and is accessible on city streets.

Musk bravado 

The California DMV and Matsko claim that Tesla and Musk's bravado over the autonomous capabilities of Autopilot and FSD is contradicted by the statement on the Tesla website that drivers must remain vigilant and maintain control of the car.

“Tesla has yet to produce anything even remotely approaching a fully self-driving car,” the complaint read.

“Instead, Tesla pushes out ‘updates’ to its experimental FSD Beta software to a small minority of Tesla owners, who effectively act as untrained test engineers testing experimental software on public roadways.”

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Matsko is seeking injunctive relief that would prohibit Tesla from continuing its “deceptive and misleading marketing of ADAS technology” and allow the restitution of money the plaintiff and class members paid for technology that “Tesla promised but never delivered.” Among the damages listed are punitive damages aimed at punishing the automaker for its deceptive practices to establish itself as a dominant player in the electric vehicle market.

The plaintiff is proposing a nationwide class action suit, with an alternative for just California class action. Tesla, which has disbanded its press office, did not comment.