After what time has passed would you consider an FSD class action lawsuit?

[gearchruncher]

I didn't know there was a beta going, and was excited when I was invited to participate. Tesla is luxury brand, and you'll find many of their customers don't mind paying the extra. Absolutely there is a subset of customers who feel disenfranchised, and they deserve their day in court. But let's not kid ourselves and say everyone is outraged.

It is 100% true that many people are fine with "FSD." You'll find those are people that bought it post 2020, were promised not too much, and are running the "FSD" "Beta." The day their car was delivered, it did more because they ordered "FSD" than if they had not.

Then you'll find people from 2016-2018 that paid for it back then, were advertised full L4, yet still don't have any functionality on their cars for the extra payment, and are told they have to pay more for hardware upgrades to even get a beta that doesn't even do a fraction of what they were promised, despite a very clear advertisement that the car had all HW needed.

Half the arguments about FSD on the internet are caused by the fact that one group is completely unaware of the other group.

 

[Dewg]

It is 100% true that many people are fine with "FSD." You'll find those are people that bought it post 2020, were promised not too much, and are running the "FSD" "Beta." The day their car was delivered, it did more because they ordered "FSD" than if they had not.

Then you'll find people from 2016-2018 that paid for it back then, were advertised full L4, yet still don't have any functionality on their cars for the extra payment, and are told they have to pay more for hardware upgrades to even get a beta that doesn't even do a fraction of what they were promised, despite a very clear advertisement that the car had all HW needed.

Half the arguments about FSD on the internet are caused by the fact that one group is completely unaware of the other group.

And hopefully the early adopters find the justice they deserve - they paved the way for guys like me who bought recently and have a great experience.

 

[Dewg]

The thing is, this wasn't a dream. Pepperidge Farm remembers, but so does the actual lawsuit, which directly quotes Tesla's own autopilot description from 2016/2017:


But, as the defenders will tell you, the very next line is this:

And because of that, Tesla doesn't actually owe you anything on any specific date. So as long as they are "working" on it, you have no claim, and all lawsuits are clearly going to get thrown out. Only once you can prove that this will never happen at any date in the future (even 500 years from now) do you have a claim.

The actual lawsuit is a good read on how the lawyers are approaching this as fraud, arguing that Tesla knew and continued to know that they had no clear path to actually making this happen, and things like the video used technologies that were not scale-able (manual, pre-created HD maps of that one route), so Tesla was taking money for something they had (and still don't have) any feasible way to deliver. Again, an "investment" not a "product" but without all that pesky SEC oversight and need to actually be transparent about your risks and challenges (which is exactly where fraud occurs in investments too!)

I think part of it will come down to "good faith". Can Tesla show that they, in good faith, have been working on the feature? Have updates to firmware continued to improve capabilities? Recent videos from Chuck showing Tesla engineering cars working on his ULT constantly over multiple weeks would be excellent evidence to support that claim. That won't likely absolve them of all the claims against them. I still think they're going to have to rename the products at some point.

 

[gearchruncher]

I think part of it will come down to "good faith". Can Tesla show that they, in good faith, have been working on the feature? Have updates to firmware continued to improve capabilities? Recent videos from Chuck showing Tesla engineering cars working on his ULT constantly over multiple weeks would be excellent evidence to support that claim.

The reverse of that is the possible fraudulent aspect such as how they created the videos they used to advertise a feature. It appears the lawsuit argues that very specifically was not in good faith. It also argues that continual statements made by Musk and Tesla about timelines and capabilities were not in good faith. For instance, the website said "coming this year" in 2019, 2020, and 2021, and of course endless Elon tweets and public statements, which despite many supporters claim are irrelevant because they aren't part of the official purchase process, the lawsuit brings up because he's the CEO and doesn't just get to say whatever he wants even when he knows it's not true or representative of the company's actual state.

You don't get to lie about where you are in development, then "in good faith" work hard to make that true in the future even though it wasn't at the time of sale and you didn't actually think you could hit timelines you advertise. You also don't get out of it because in 2022 the product is starting to sort of do things you promised in 2019 in writing or in 2017 in less formal methods.

All of this is a bit ironic right now given Elon is claiming he can get out of the Twitter deal due to Twitter "fraudulently" hiding information from him, when he literally signed a contract saying he knowingly waives his right to due diligence.

 

[Knightshade]

Then you'll find people from 2016-2018 that paid for it back then, were advertised full L4, yet still don't have any functionality on their cars for the extra payment

No, you will not.

All those folks have had extra functionality on their cars since early 2020.

(those in the beta have even more of course- but even those without have more, and have had for ~2.5 years now, compared to folks without FSD)

 

[CyberGus]

Burger King Sued Over 'Misleading' Ad Photos of Its Burgers

They aren't happy.

petapixel.com

 

[Dewg]

Burger King Sued Over 'Misleading' Ad Photos of Its Burgers

They aren't happy.

petapixel.com

The entire advertising world is about to be attacked. Cereal commercials and ads use white glue instead of milk. Food is prayed with chemicals to make it appear more moist for photography. Ice cream is made from mashed potatoes with lard, and food coloring. Whipped cream is actually shaving cream. Motor oil is used to make meat shiny, and shoe polish makes it look darker and more flavorful. Champaign is water with soy sauce and Alka-Seltzer Tabs.

And let's not start with photoshopped celebrities in magazines (sorry - "retouched")...

Companies want their products to look the absolute best to attract customers. The question is, do consumers actually expect the product to look like the advertisement? And are lawsuits, like the Burger King lawsuit you mentioned, without merit? Will the company just settle the suit to avoid bad PR, even though it could see it through in court?

 

[dgatwood]

In the end, all FSD purchases should be essentially refunded.

Unfortunately, that's not adequate compensation. I didn't buy FSD. I bought a car with the promise that it would eventually be able to drive itself. FSD was only 5% of the cost of that car. The other 95% of that cost — which, might I add, is four times as much as I've ever paid for any previous car — was worth it only because of that promise.

So no, refunding FSD isn't even remotely good enough if Tesla doesn't eventually pull it off. I want my money back on the car.

On the other hand I also understand that it is an iterative process, and as long as Tesla was continuing to make progress and demonstrating progress and upgrading hardware as needed to make it possible for me to enjoy that progress, I was happy. Unfortunately...

Then you'll find people from 2016-2018 that paid for it back then, were advertised full L4, yet still don't have any functionality on their cars for the extra payment, and are told they have to pay more for hardware upgrades to even get a beta that doesn't even do a fraction of what they were promised, despite a very clear advertisement that the car had all HW needed.

That's where I have a problem with Tesla. What I want is a lawsuit seeking to compel Tesla to perform all hardware upgrades required for our cars to use FSD Beta. If that means they have to give us MCU2, then they have to give us MCU2. That promise to replace hardware as needed to make it capable of self-driving was explicit, and Tesla is failing to live up to that agreement, and has been for more than two years.

I think we've been patient enough.

 

[gearchruncher]

That's where I have a problem with Tesla. What I want is a lawsuit seeking to compel Tesla to perform all hardware upgrades required for our cars to use FSD Beta. If that means they have to give us MCU2, then they have to give us MCU2. That promise to replace hardware as needed to make it capable of self-driving was explicit, and Tesla is failing to live up to that agreement, and has been for more than two years.

Small claims is perfect for this FYI, given Tesla has conveniently defined the value of the hardware at $2,750 for an upgrade that gets you MCU2 and HW3. You don't have to wait for some class action, you can take the action yourself.

 

[jjrandorin]

Man, you know a first post is a good troll job when the thread is still going over a year and half later, even after the OP of the thread has been banned from the site.

 

[hooty]

Only once you can prove that this will never happen at any date in the future (even 500 years from now) do you have a claim.

This is the crux to be legally tested - what period of time can pass when 'non-definitive' statements & 'general marketing' have contractual obligation
My guess is comes down to the 'reasonable person test':
Reasonable person - Wikipedia

The standard is also used in contract law,[12] to determine contractual intent

 

[_jal_]

Man, you know a first post is a good troll job when the thread is still going over a year and half later, even after the OP of the thread has been banned from the site.

It’s ridiculous! It’s the kind of troll job that would take a pretty profound sense of wrong to actually make enough people actually care about so many years later. Especially dorks who paid $100k for a car. Or maybe even twice!

 

[dgatwood]

Small claims is perfect for this FYI, given Tesla has conveniently defined the value of the hardware at $2,750 for an upgrade that gets you MCU2 and HW3. You don't have to wait for some class action, you can take the action yourself.

Yeah, but that would require me actually caring enough to do it.

 

[Knightshade]

Unfortunately, that's not adequate compensation. I didn't buy FSD. I bought a car with the promise that it would eventually be able to drive itself. FSD was only 5% of the cost of that car. The other 95% of that cost — which, might I add, is four times as much as I've ever paid for any previous car — was worth it only because of that promise.

So no, refunding FSD isn't even remotely good enough if Tesla doesn't eventually pull it off. I want my money back on the car.

I think you'd have an exceedingly hard case trying to argue the entire purchase was reliant on a vague, undated, promise of a specific feature not available at all when you made the purchase.

Especially when it could trivially be shown (from your cars mileage) you got significant value out of the vehicle over time.

That said- even if you COULD reach that crazy high bar- I expect the actual damages, given the crazy high resale value of used Teslas, would still be a lot smaller than "the entire price of the new car"

That's where I have a problem with Tesla. What I want is a lawsuit seeking to compel Tesla to perform all hardware upgrades required for our cars to use FSD Beta.

Except you were never promised FSDbeta. At all.

It's a narrow-release development product- it's not the public wide release one.

Nobody is "sold" FSDBeta, but a subset of those who own FSD are given the opportunity to help with development- it's unrelated to the sales contract though and you aren't "owed" access to it.


Now if it goes wide release to all FSD owners in your geo- THEN you absolutely have a firm case to get any needed HW upgrades for free.

But that's not currently the case.

Nor, given Tesla DID provide those every PREVIOUS time something went to wide release and required free HW, is there any reason to suspect you wouldn't get those free HW upgrades again.

 

[gearchruncher]

Hilariously given this lawsuit, apparently in the car now it is back to "coming this year" for city streets autosteer:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaLounge/comments/xg8vyd

 

[Knightshade]

To be fair, unlike when they originally made that promise, the feature exists now- I just used it to take a friend to the airport and back in fact.

And going to wide release at L2 by end of year isn't inconceivable like it was when they originally made that claim a couple years ago.

 

[dgatwood]

I think you'd have an exceedingly hard case trying to argue the entire purchase was reliant on a vague, undated, promise of a specific feature not available at all when you made the purchase.

I think they'd have an exceedingly hard case trying to argue that someone who was driving a ten-year-old RAV4 at the time would have bought a luxury automobile for ~4x as much money without that promise. They would be laughed out of court.

And no, the promise wasn't vague. It was undated, but not vague. Paraphrasing, they said that it will drive to pick you up from anywhere, even across the country, that any hardware required to achieve self driving will be provided, and so on. Those are concrete promises that have a well-understood meaning. I spent a fortune on a car planning on it being the last car I ever buy, knowing that it will be able to eventually drive me around when I get too old to do it myself. Without that promise, if I upgraded at the time, it would have been to a new RAV4 or Rogue or something else in that price and size class. But honestly, I would probably have held out for an EV from someone else a few years later.

So if they make the decision to never roll out anything that qualifies as FSD, it would be entirely reasonable to argue that the value I've gotten from the car is not demonstrably different from the value I would have gotten from someone else's EV a couple of years later costing a third as much, and therefore about two-thirds the cost of the vehicle came from choosing to buy a Tesla — a decision that was quite literally entirely because of that FSD promise.

Additionally, I would argue that because they repeatedly made materially incorrect promises that the feature would be there soon, their confidence actively discouraged me from selling the vehicle when I would have lost only a small amount to depreciation. So if they decide to drop any plans for true full self-driving, it would not be one action that resulted in that depreciation, but a pattern of behavior on Tesla's part, thus making the case even stronger.

But again, I fully expect they'll get there eventually. I'm just annoyed that they managed to turn the MCU into a sluggish nightmare, to the point where I'm not sure I'll feel safe in a vehicle whose FSD navigation involves communicating with an MCU that takes half a minute just to paint the maps, and minutes to paint a web browser screen or release notes screen (if it ever does). And I have strong suspicions that if it were possible to make it work, they would already have done it for the FSD beta, with most of the visualizations turned off, which suggests to me that they'll probably eventually have to upgrade all of them anyway, so I wish they would just go ahead and get it over with.

 

[dgatwood]

Except you were never promised FSDbeta. At all.

If I had even the slightest clue that they were going to upgrade the MCU six months later, or that when the car was only about a year old, they'd bog down the MCU to the point where some features are nearly unusable, or that betas of the feature that was the main reason for me buying the car would be unavailable for testing until more than two years after others got the opportunity to apply to test it, it suffices to say that I'd have run the opposite direction. It feels like Tesla is basically treating MCU1 as abandonware at this point.

The state of MCU1 is, frankly, downright sad, and if the best you can argue is that it isn't strictly a violation of the purchase contract, well, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Just saying.

 

[Knightshade]

I think they'd have an exceedingly hard case trying to argue that someone who was driving a ten-year-old RAV4 at the time would have bought a luxury automobile for ~4x as much money without that promise. They would be laughed out of court.

Why?

TONS of people buy nicer more expensive cars as they get older.

Before I got my first Lexus I was driving a Chevy.

And the Lexus didn't even promise to do ANYTHING half as good as basic AP.

And the Tesla I replaced my Lexus with is a vastly better car, even without FSD.

So if they make the decision to never roll out anything that qualifies as FSD, it would be entirely reasonable to argue that the value I've gotten from the car is not demonstrably different from the value I would have gotten from someone else's EV a couple of years later costing a third as much

Who else sold a comparable EV for 1/3rd the price? (spoiler: nobody. Not even today)

And I have strong suspicions that if it were possible to make it work, they would already have done it for the FSD beta, with most of the visualizations turned off, which suggests to me that they'll probably eventually have to upgrade all of them anyway, so I wish they would just go ahead and get it over with.

I'd absolutely expect they'll have to once FSD goes wide release, for those who bought FSD anyway.

But it makes no sense at all for a business to spend money it doesn't have to any sooner than it has to. See also when they finally decided to upgrade the HW2.0 cameras or the HW2.x driving computers for FSD owners.

Not to mention- if they eventually decide you REALLY need MCU3, they save a bunch of parts AND labor not moving MCU1 cars to MCU2 "free" in the interim.

If I had even the slightest clue that they were going to upgrade the MCU six months later, or that when the car was only about a year old, they'd bog down the MCU to the point where some features are nearly unusable, or that betas of the feature that was the main reason for me buying the car would be unavailable for testing until more than two years after others got the opportunity to apply to test it, it suffices to say that I'd have run the opposite direction.

Why?

"testing before it's ready for wide release" was never part of what Tesla promised you as part of your purchase.

It feels like Tesla is basically treating MCU1 as abandonware at this point.

The state of MCU1 is, frankly, downright sad, and if the best you can argue is that it isn't strictly a violation of the purchase contract, well, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Just saying.

It's absolutely abandonware-- but since currently you don't get any more promised public release FSD features with MCU3 than MCU1 it's irrelevant to the purchase contract.

Again when that changes I fully expect the remaining MCU1/FSD owners will get a free MCU upgrade.

 

[gearchruncher]

The state of MCU1 is, frankly, downright sad, and if the best you can argue is that it isn't strictly a violation of the purchase contract, well, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Just saying.

My MCU1 stopped doing things it said it was supposed to do in the manual- like voice commands, and navigation had become unusable it was so slow. Backup camera (a required safety device) often was non-functional because the unit was rebooting. Car was still under warranty, yet Tesla had no fix except pay $2000 for MCU2, even after I escalated to regional service and even legal.

I'll keep suggesting small claims for cases like this.