Tesla Inc was sued for failing to deliver on Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s long-standing promise to produce a fully self-driving car. A California man claims the electric-car maker has “deceptively and misleadingly marketed” its driver-assistance systems, while stringing the public along with statements that the company is “perpetually on the cusp of perfecting” the technology.
“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 unrivalled cutting-edge technology,
and to establish itself as a leading player in the fast-growing
electric-vehicle market,” Briggs A. Matsko, a resident of Rancho Murieta, said
in the proposed class action, filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court.
Tesla faces increasing scrutiny from US regulators over the safety of its
automated driving systems and is set to face its first jury trial in February
over a driver fatality blamed on Autopilot.
Matsko says that every year since 2016, Musk and Tesla have
promised that a fully self-driving car “was just around the corner”. Musk, the
world’s richest person, told a Tesla owners club in June that solving full
self-driving technology is “really the difference between Tesla being worth a
lot of money and being worth basically zero”.
Musk tweeted in August that as of September 5, Tesla would
start charging US$15,000 in North America for the driver-assistance system it
calls Full Self-Driving, the product’s second price hike this year. Tesla’s FSD
has stirred controversy because it requires active supervision and does not
make the company’s vehicles autonomous.
Matsko said he bought a new Tesla Model X in 2018 and paid
the company an extra US$5,000 above base price for “Enhanced Autopilot”. “It is
now four years later, and Tesla has never provided plaintiff anything remotely
approaching the fully self-driving car it promised to provide,” Matsko said in
the complaint. The suit piggybacks on an administrative complaint filed in
August by the California Department of Motor Vehicles accusing Tesla of false
advertising.
The agency claims the company’s statements about its
Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features lead customers to believe they are
more advanced than they are. Tesla has asked for a hearing to defend itself.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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