How to sue Tesla over historical claims

[wooter]

It's not the first time Tesla hasn't shown up in court. In one of the cases I mentioned, Tesla didn't show up either, but it wasn't small claims court, and if you get a judgement without showing up, you can ask for a retrial. Which they did in that case.

I really think nobody at Tesla was awake enough behind the proverbial wheel to react to your small claims court case.

 

[wooter]

Yep, which I should be able to do because "All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability." It's not my fault that Tesla offers a 1 month subscription with no minimum period, but it's also irrelevant as there are features tied to HW3 that you get even without FSD. Tesla's policy is irrelevant because it goes against their initial advertising used to sell the car originally. And the judge agreed.

I don't disagree on that. FSD subscription was a bad idea. I mean, yes it's a good idea, except HW2.0 and 2.5 weren't sufficient for FSD, but with a free upgrade to HW3.0 they kept HW2.x owners happy. In the smoke and mirrors show, there was no additional cost if you had a 2.x car and bought FSD. You only got an invite to Tesla for some smoke and mirrors.

The FSD subscription kind of ruined that, and on an economic level it's easily defendable that subscribers are required to pony up 1K to start their subscription, but they made a difference between owners of already HW3 who didn't need to pay 1K, and owners of HW2.x who did need to pay, and that kind of ruins the show.

But yeah, you got helped a lot by Tesla not showing up. Like I said, I know of a case in the Netherlands that went bad for the owner, and a case in Germany that went bad for Tesla.

 

[2101Guy]

Good point. The lawyers may have been too busy helping Elon attempt to back out of an overpriced (per Elons own words) twitter purchase. I’m guessing it probably takes quite a few man hours (in-house and external lawyers) to pour over every detail in a bullet proof contract to attempt to back out of it.

And then…fail

 

[gearchruncher]

and if you get a judgement without showing up, you can ask for a retrial. Which they did in that case.

Thankfully, in the USA, if you don't show up or respond in any way at all to a summons, you lose you chance to a retrial.
It seems crazy that you can just not show up, hope you win, and if you don't, ask again.

I don't think I was helped by Tesla not showing, as I truly believe in the merits, but we'll never know. All we know is that Tesla couldn't be bothered to defend against the claims, which says a lot about how much they believe in their policies and how likely they are to defend in other cases.

 

[dbldwn02]

By the looks of it you successfully misrepresented your case, and Tesla didn't show up to defend.

HW2.x cars get a free upgrade to HW3.0 if you buy FSD. If you don't have FSD, you don't get the upgrade. If you get the FSD subscription, Tesla requires you to buy the upgrade for 1K, since you can cancel the subscription after 1 month and not pony up the full amount required to make the upgrade worthwhile.

MCU1 is compatible with HW3.0 and FSD, but lacks some visualisations. MCU2 is not a requirement for FSD and HW3.0.

MCU1 is compatible with FSD??? LOL. That's news to me. I still don't have an FSD button, six years later.

Also you missed the part that Tesla (not Elon) said in 2016, that "all teslas built from late 2016 and on have the required hardware for full self driving."

Subscription or not, I bought a car that supposedly had all the hardware required to do it. Tesla should have thought about that before offering up a subscription.

 

[Krash]

…FSD subscription was a bad idea…

Tesla should have said:

1. FSD doesn’t exist yet
2. Only FSD Preview exists (i.e. Beta)
3. Because FSD is not finished, we do not know for sure what the final hardware requirements will be.
4. We provide faster hardware to some owners of Preview for the purpose of building and testing it.
5. You can subscribe to a FSD Preview with HW2.x. We require a minimum six month subscription and include a free hardware upgrade that is yours to keep.
6. Once FSD is finished, if FSD owners’ hardware is inadequate, we will upgrade it to the latest hardware available to their platform.

This skirts around the issues of

1. Whether HW2.x subscription holders in the future will get free hardware. And…
2. Whether FSD hardware upgrades will be available to FSD non buyers and non subscribers. And…
3. What happens if future Tesla FSD hardware never gets released for the older platforms like older HWx setups and older MCUs.

 

[gearchruncher]

Tesla should have said:

You're forgetting that the FSD sub was/is the way for people to get summon, navigate on autopilot, and other AP features that used to be EAP.
"FSD Capability" is not all about the City Streets Autosteer Beta. If you have a HW2.5 car and no EAP, and all you wanted was NOA which is supported on 2.5HW, they still won't let you subscribe without a HW upgrade. The have made the FSD computer a requirement for FSD capability, and all cars supposedly had ALL HW needed for FSD capability.

You can subscribe to a FSD Preview with HW2.x. We require a minimum six month subscription and include a free hardware upgrade that is yours to keep.

Whoops. Tesla just admitted the car didn't have the hardware needed, and defined damages (5 months of subscription that other owners with hardware didn't need to do).
The INSTANT they treat HW2/2.5 cars different than HW3 cars, they have shown the HW was not there, and that it was false advertising that the HW was there.

 

[Krash]

…The INSTANT they treat HW2/2.5 cars different than HW3 cars, they have shown the HW was not there, and that it was false advertising that the HW was there.

No. FSD is not FSD Beta, no matter how many times you confuse the two.

Tesla could release all sorts of new hardware on which to tun the Beta. Until FSD is released, which may be never, an interesting response to the argument of

“but Tesla said my car had all the hardware to run FSD”

…will always be…

“well FSD doesn’t exist yet, so we’ll have to wait and see”

 

[gearchruncher]

FSD is not FSD Beta, no matter how many times you confuse the two.

You get it too, FSD CAPABILITY is not FSD Beta. But Tesla sells FSD CAPABILITY not FSD BETA. You're the one mixing up what the issue is here. Every single time you go to buy anything from Tesla, they call it FSD CAPABILITY.

You can buy FSD CAPABILITY today. Tesla will take you money for it TODAY. This is not a future thing. But it's a thing you can only buy if you have the right hardware.

“but Tesla said my car had all the hardware to run FSD”

We need to stop making up quotes. The actual advertisement from Tesla:

All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability

The actual product Tesla SELLS, which us "Full Self Driving Capability": Full Self-Driving Capability Subscriptions | Tesla Support

With Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability, you will get access to a suite of more advanced driver assistance features, designed to provide more active guidance and assisted driving under your active supervision.

That page literally has the section:

Hardware upgrades to the Full Self-Driving computer are not included with Full Self-Driving capability subscriptions. To be eligible for FSD capability subscriptions, the FSD computer must be installed in your vehicle.

Tesla literally said all cars come with the HW needed for FSD CAPABILITY. They then tell you that in order to subscribe to FSD CAPABILITY, you have to pay for hardware.

This really isn't that hard, and it has NOTHING to do with City Streets Autosteer BETA (which is what "FSD Beta" actually is). It's what Tesla sells TODAY and won't let you buy without hardware they told you was already in the car.

 

[wooter]

You're forgetting that the FSD sub was/is the way for people to get summon, navigate on autopilot, and other AP features that used to be EAP.

It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure summon and NoA were available on HW2.x.

Your beef is that you needed to pay 1K for smoke and mirrors on top of your FSD subscription, and 2K for MCU2 which according to Tesla isn’t required for the eventual future production version of FSD.

Now, when push comes to shove I’m pretty sure there will be an issue between a production version of FSD and MCU1, but those are problems Tesla’s not at yet.

As long as Tesla doesn’t show up in small claims court, it can go either way for anyone who’s looking to get HW3 and MCU2 for free.

 

[2101Guy]

I just went to Tesla.com to see if Tesla sold "FSD Beta" or "FSD Capability". You know, to confirm via Tesla's own written words what they are selling/advertising/marketing:

 

[gearchruncher]

It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure summon and NoA were available on HW2.x.

Software wise, they are. Purchase wise, they are not.
Why? Because you can only get them via FSD capability.
Tesla will not let you subscribe to FSD capability without HW3.0.

This is literally the feature set Tesla includes with the FSD sub, that they will not allow you to sub to without HW 3.0. This makes their position even weaker, as we know that NOA, Lane Change, Autopark, and summon work on cars with HW2.5 and EAP. But Tesla won't let you buy "Full Self Driving Capability" without a pay-for hardware upgrade, despite "All cars having the hardware needed for full self driving capability"

Your beef is that you needed to pay 1K for smoke and mirrors on top of your FSD subscription, and 2K for MCU2 which according to Tesla isn’t required for the eventual future production version of FSD.

My beef with MCU1 was that it stopped being a MCU at all because it was so unstable due to software "upgrades", and Tesla's only under-warranty fix was a $2000 hardware change.

 

[Tesomega]

Some basics, can anyone provide the right Tesla Entity to use in Small Claims Court?

Secretary of State

bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov

 

[wooter]

Software wise, they are. Purchase wise, they are not.
Why? Because you can only get them via FSD capability.
Tesla will not let you subscribe to FSD capability without HW3.0.

It all obviously depends on when which functionality was offered in which version in which country, but in Europe NoA and Summon are offered in Enhanced AutoPilot, and don’t come with an upgrade to HW3.

 

[2101Guy]

Some basics, can anyone provide the right Tesla Entity to use in Small Claims Court?

Secretary of State

bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov

are you asking for who to serve the small claims papers with? If the company you are suing, does not have their headquarters in your state, then your small claims court office typically can provide you with the name of the agent responsible for representing that company within your state. And that is who gets served. However, since it appears, you are in California, I assume you could list Tesla themselves as the entity to have served?

 

[Tesomega]

are you asking for who to serve the small claims papers with? If the company you are suing, does not have their headquarters in your state, then your small claims court office typically can provide you with the name of the agent responsible for representing that company within your state. And that is who gets served. However, since it appears, you are in California, I assume you could list Tesla themselves as the entity to have served?

I found them..

TESLA MOTORS, INC. (2550630),​

I am just doing some groundwork.. to get started on this, while I want my email to [email protected] to be addressed (60 days is what they claim)

 

[2101Guy]

I found them..

TESLA MOTORS, INC. (2550630),​

I am just doing some groundwork.. to get started on this, while I want my email to [email protected] to be addressed (60 days is what they claim)

Good luck, keep us updated.

 

[gearchruncher]

Some basics, can anyone provide the right Tesla Entity to use in Small Claims Court?

However, since it appears, you are in California, I assume you could list Tesla themselves as the entity to have served?

Tesla is a Delware company legally.

You don't have to notify them first. You only notify them once you have to serve them, which is once you get your court date.

Once you have a court date, you have to look up their registered agent in CA. The secretary of state will have this. This is their legal representative in the state in which they do buisness. In CA, this appears to be:

C T CORPORATION SYSTEM
28 LIBERTY STREET NEW YORK, NY 10005

So once you have a court date and can serve them, you send registered mail to the above address.

 

[wooter]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1600647269501411328

Time is running out 😬

 

[Mike7564]

Wow. I’m quite surprised no one has challenged the practice where they have a non-refundable order fee for logistics but then they are able to deliver a vehicle with less features than what you locked in at that time. Sure they can add whatever they choose, but shouldn’t allowed to downgrade the car without at least making the fee refundable.

Seems like classic bait and switch.