Tesla “Autopilot” and “Fully Self-Driving” Claims Class Action

Tesla, Inc., which does business as Tesla Motors, Inc., is associated with advanced and self-driving vehicles, but this class action alleges that the company has made excessive claims about its vehicles’ abilities and safety. It brings suit against Tesla, Tesla Lease Trust, and Tesla Finance, LLC, alleging the companies have promised consumers more than they can safely deliver.

The Nationwide Class for this action is all persons who, between January 1, 2016 and the present, bought or leased from Tesla, Inc. (or any entity it directly or indirectly owns or controls, including Tesla Lease Trust or Tesla Finance, LLC) a new Tesla vehicle with Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot, or Full Self-Driving Capability. A Florida Subclass has also been defined for those in the above class who either bought or leased the vehicle in Florida or who currently live in Florida.

On its first page, the complaint cites another complaint filed against the company by the State of California, concerning a number of terms it has used or claims it has made about its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology, including the following:

• The term “Autopilot.”
• The phrase “Full Self-Driving Capability.”
• The statement, “The system is designed to be able to conduct short[-] and long-distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.”
• Another statement about a vehicle’s ability to understand where you want to go, take you there and let you off, park itself, and later return when you summon it.

The complaint also quotes the California complaint as saying that the company represents the vehicles equipped with ADAS technology as fully autonomous when they “could not at the time of those advertisements, and cannot now, operate as autonomous vehicles. These advertisements are a deceptive practice.”

According to the present complaint, head of the company Elon Musk has been claiming since at least 2016 that Tesla vehicles were about to achieve complete autonomy, when they are far from doing so. For example, Tesla’s blog claimed in 2016 that “All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware.”

In 2019, the complaint alleges, “Tesla promised consumers that a fully self-driving Tesla car would be available by the end of that year that could deliver a fully automated trip across the country.” However, it claims “Tesla has not lived up to its repeated promises of a fully self-driving car capable of safely traveling any distance—much less a fully automated three-thousand-mile journey across the country.”

The complaint sets forth a scale of driving automation, from Level 1, “Driver Assistance,” being a vehicle with “a single automated system (e.g., adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance)” to Level 5, “Full Driving Automation.”

According to the complaint, Tesla has been claiming that it is about to achieve Level 5, when in reality it is still at Level 2, “Partial Driving Automation,” where “[t]he vehicle can perform multiple driving tasks (e.g., acceleration, steering) but remains under the human driver’s constant supervision, responsibility, and control.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Breach of warranty, Deceptive Advertising, Fraud, Negligent Misrepresentation