A lawsuit says Tesla rushed its self-driving cars to market with technology that isn’t safe.
30 August 2022, 8:43 a.m.
Wilmingdon A Californian who owns a Tesla Model 3 sued the company in a proposed class action because cars would suddenly stop for obstacles that didn’t exist. The lawsuit called this a “terrifying and dangerous nightmare.”
According to the lawsuit filed by Jose Alvarez Toledo of San Francisco, Tesla rushed to get its self-driving cars on the market with unsafe technology. This includes its driver assistance system, which the company calls Autopilot or Full Self-Driving, and its emergency braking system.
This makes the public and regulators look more closely at Tesla’s driver assistant technology, even though Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the cars will be fully self-driving by the end of this year.
Related: Elon Musk hopes to have self-driving Teslas available in the U.S. by the end of the year.
“When the sudden unintended braking defect happens, they turn what is supposed to be a safety feature into a scary and dangerous nightmare,” said Toledo’s lawsuit, which was filed Friday in federal court in the northern district of California.
The lawsuit wants to make everyone in the U.S. who owns or rents a Tesla with the sudden unintended braking defect part of a class action.
Tesla for a comment, but the company didn’t answer right away.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started looking into 416,000 Tesla cars in February after hearing that Autopilot sometimes turned on the brakes by accident.
The lawsuit said that Tesla lied about the safety risks of Autopilot, broke its warranties, made unfair profits from Autopilot, and broke California’s law against unfair competition.
Related: Tesla stock is in the spotlight as a 3-1 stock split takes effect.
The lawsuit wants both compensatory and punitive damages for the cost of fixing cars and the loss in value of Tesla cars, as well as a refund for the extra cost caused by the Autopilot feature.
