Tesla has been ordered to upgrade one customer’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) hardware for free as Washington Judge Matthew A. Skau ruled that the automaker’s original claims amounted to “false advertising” (via electrek).
The ruling came after plaintiff and Tesla owner Ian Jordan noted that the automaker said any hardware upgrades needed to run FSD would be done for free with the purchase of its FSD package.
According to Tesla, all of its vehicles produced since 2016 include “all the needed hardware” to run the FSD software, along with future updates.
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Despite offering the free retrofits, Tesla owners were asked to pay $1,500 (later reduced to $1,000) to upgrade from the HW2.5 computer to the HW3 retrofitted computer, prior to purchasing an FSD subscription.
Jordan wanted to subscribe to the FSD beta package on his Model 3, but it only included HW2.5. To subscribe to the software, Jordan was told to spend over $1,000 upgrading to HW3, and after requests for a solution from Tesla were largely ignored, he took the case to small claims court.
“Furthermore, Plaintiff purchased a second Tesla Model 3, relying on advertisement from the company that all Tesla 3 models come with all the necessary hardware for self-driving,” Judge Skau wrote in the case’s conclusion.
“Defendant learned that, in fact, installing the self-driving function would cost $1,106 in further hardware upgrades in violation of Tesla’s false advertising.”
