Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, was sued on Wednesday in a proposed class action accusing it of deceiving the public by fraudulently promoting its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features.
With Tesla’s ability to sell things that it has yet to develop and completely missing many dates for them, it seemed inevitable that the company would face legal consequences.
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP said that it had filed a class action complaint in the Northern District of California alleging that Tesla has misled buyers with its statements concerning Autopilot and the Full Self-Driving Package and has essentially delivered a flawed product.
“The lawsuit filed today alleges that Tesla has yet to produce a fully self-driving car. Tesla owners receiving the latest “updates” to Tesla’s Autopilot software and FSD beta software have reported myriad problems, such as cars having difficulty making routine turns, running red lights, and steering into oncoming traffic. There have also been numerous collisions involving Tesla’s purportedly cutting-edge software, including vehicles crashing at high speeds into large stationary objects such as emergency vehicles and an overturned box truck,” they wrote in a press release.
Briggs Matsko, a Sacramento-based financial advisor, is the principal plaintiff. The company is now searching for other plaintiffs to join the action.
“As alleged in the complaint, people had relied upon the representations of Tesla that the self-driving capabilities are safe when Tesla knew they had many problems.” Joe Cotchett, a partner of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, said about the lawsuit.
In addition, the lawsuit uses government investigations into Tesla Autopilot and FSD. Those inspections, however, have yet to uncover a flaw in Tesla’s systems.
The latest lawsuit was unavoidable, and Tesla will have difficulty defending it. At the absolute least, I believe Tesla should issue refunds to everyone who bought Full Self-Driving if they do not want it. And that seems reasonable after so many missed deadlines and almost no usefulness from FSD Beta.
On Tesla’s side, there would be some goodwill that would deter more individuals from joining the case; however, legal measures are unavoidable now. Tesla created a hole that it must climb out of by keeping its promises, proving far more difficult than anticipated.