A California man has sued Tesla for failing to deliver on the promise of a fully self-driving car company CEO Elon Musk has been constantly making. The man claimed the electric-car maker has “deceptively and misleadingly marketed” its driver-assistance systems, saying all this while 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 unrivaled cutting-edge technology, and to establish itself as a leading player in the fast-growing electric-vehicle market,” Briggs A Matsko’s proposed class action filed on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court said.
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“Tesla has yet to produce anything even remotely approaching a fully self-driving car,” Matsko said.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco seeks unspecified damages for people who since 2016 bought or leased Tesla vehicles with Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features.
Tesla has said Autopilot enables vehicles to steer, accelerate and brake within their lanes, while Full Self-Driving lets vehicles obey traffic signals and change lanes.
It has also said both technologies “require active driver supervision,” with a “fully attentive” driver whose hands are on the wheel, “and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
Matsko further informed that he bought a new Tesla Model X in 2018 and paid an extra $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.
Musk had informed in a tweet in August that Tesla would start charging $15,000 in North America for the driver-assistance system it calls Full Self-Driving, from September 5. This was the product’s second price hike this year. The FSD has attracted controversy because it requires active supervision and doesn’t make the company’s vehicles autonomous.
The lawsuit followed complaints filed on July 28 by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles accusing Tesla of overstating how well its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) worked.
(With inputs from agencies)
