A District Judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s Tesla must face a class action lawsuit filed by California drivers who allege that Musk misled them for eight years about the self-driving capabilities of the company’s EVs.
Reuters reports that Elon Musk’s Tesla is facing a significant legal challenge as District Judge Rita Lin has certified a class action lawsuit against the company over its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. The decision allows two groups of California drivers who purchased the FSD package to collectively sue Tesla for allegedly misleading them about the autonomous driving capabilities of their vehicles. The company had fought efforts to certify the case as a class action.
The plaintiffs argue that Tesla and Musk made false claims about the company’s ability to achieve high-level autonomy, citing the lack of sensors and the inability to demonstrate a long-distance autonomous drive with any of its vehicles. Judge Lin noted that thousands of people were likely exposed to Tesla’s assertions about its vehicles containing hardware for full self-driving, which were made on the company’s website, blog posts, newsletters, and even during a press conference by Musk himself.
Tesla’s unique advertising strategy, which forgoes traditional mass advertising and independent dealers, played a significant role in the judge’s decision. Lin stated that it was reasonable to infer that class members interested in the FSD technology would have visited Tesla’s website to gather information, making the company’s statements material to their purchasing decisions.
This courtroom loss for Musk comes on the heels of Tesla being found partially at fault for a lawsuit that caused the death of a woman and badly injured her boyfriend. As Breitbart News previously reported, safety expert Missy Cummings was highly critical of Musk and Tesla’s claims about Autopilot and FSD in her testimony:
According to Cummings, Tesla’s owner’s manual, which contains crucial warnings about the Autopilot system’s functionality, is not easily accessible to drivers. She also pointed out that Tesla had been grappling with drivers ignoring computer-generated warnings prior to the crash. Cummings noted that the company had not implemented geo-fencing, a technology already in use by other car manufacturers to prevent drivers from activating driver-assistance features on roads unsuitable for such systems.
When asked by Brett Schreiber, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, about Tesla’s decision not to use geo-fencing in 2019, Cummings responded, “I believe they were using that as a way to sell more cars.” Cummings, who previously served as a senior adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is expected to face questioning from Tesla’s lawyers when she returns to the witness stand.
The certified classes include drivers who bought the FSD package from May 19, 2017, to July 31, 2024, and opted out of Tesla’s arbitration agreement, as well as those who purchased the package from October 20, 2016, to May 19, 2017. However, the judge refused to certify a class of drivers who bought Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot package, as its core product qualities did not require full self-driving functionality, rendering Tesla’s alleged false statements immaterial to their purchasing decisions.
Tesla’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling. The company had previously argued that it was unreasonable to assume all class members had seen the challenged statements and that there was no common proof of the statements’ materiality.
This class action lawsuit comes at a time when federal officials are examining the safety of Tesla’s full self-driving software, which is also a crucial component of the company’s proposed robotaxi service. The outcome of this case could have significant implications for Tesla’s reputation and the future of its autonomous driving technology.
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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