California attorney general’s office investigating Tesla over FSD

Elon Musk’s Tesla has long been scrutinized for its Autopilot and Full Self Driving (FSD) systems.

The automobile company has previously been sued over misleading self-driving claims. It has been argued that the company has overstated the effectiveness and safety of Tesla vehicles’ Autopilot and Full Self-Driving tech. Now, Tesla is again facing an investigation, this time by the California attorney general’s office, over the marketing and safety of its driver assistance systems, as shared by CNBC News. 

The investigation comes after the attorney general’s office contacted several Tesla customers and former employees who had filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or shared their concerns about Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features. For example, Greg Wester, who owns a 2018 Tesla Model 3, filed a ‘Phantom Braking‘ complaint with the FTC in 2022. He added that he felt misled by Tesla after paying thousands of dollars for FSD, which he expected to be a fully autonomous system, but turned out to be a driver assistance feature.

“Tesla should offer customers the option to receive a full refund of Autopilot features if they are unsatisfied with the product,” Wester said in an interview via CNBC News. “We bought a full autonomy product and we received a driver monitoring product with partial autonomy.”

Another person, a former Tesla employee whose family owns a 2021 Model 3 with FSD, was also contacted by email in July 2023 by a senior legal analyst in the California AG’s consumer protection division, who asked for information for an active investigation into Tesla. The former employee asked for his identity to remain unknown.

Tesla’s vehicles have been criticized for their Autopilot and FSD features, which have been involved in several (1) crashes (2) (3).

Musk has repeatedly claimed that Tesla vehicles will soon be able to drive themselves without human intervention through OTA updates, but we’re not sure if that is happening any time soon.

Transport Canada, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), The U.S. Department of Justice and more, are all investigating Tesla and its features.

Source: CNBC News