Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta has come under fire in recent weeks and months, and a new lawsuit has now been lodged against the automaker.
Legal firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP has filed a class-action lawsuit against Tesla, alleging the company misled the public on its claims about Autopilot and FSD, as detailed in a press release on Wednesday.
The lawsuit points out that Tesla has misled owners of its cars since at least 2016, using deceptive marketing tactics to convince the public that these systems were fully operational.
Specifically, the lawsuit mentions a 2016 video from Tesla about its FSD system, in which the company says, “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not driving anything. The car is driving itself.”
So far, these allegations have yet to be proven in court. Tesla has yet to comment on the class action lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California, Case No. 3:22-cv-05240 by Plaintiff Briggs Matsko of Sacramento, California.
NYT Journalist Rides in Tesla’s FSD Beta 10.69.2 for Upcoming Story https://t.co/I2mFJyLSWL
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) September 14, 2022
Last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to an official from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) who was trying to get the FSD beta to work, simply saying, “Ok, we’ll turn it on.”
The NHTSA has been investigating Tesla’s Autopilot following several accidents with first responders’ vehicles, and the agency even expanded the probe as recently as June.
Tesla also faces a class-action lawsuit over its vehicles’ phantom braking, which causes unnecessary and unexpected braking while Autopilot is engaged.
