I'll start with a really quick summary. I bought a Model 3, taking delivery in July 2019 and paying £5800 for the FSD extra. My view was that Tesla had failed to deliver on the contract with how they described FSD at the time, and so I ended up taking them to court for £5800 plus interest and costs. Just before the court hearing was about to take place, Tesla settled with me, the core of the settlement being:
- FSD removed from my car, e.g. just standard Autopilot
- Tesla paying me a little over £8000
That's the summary, if you'd like to hear more read on! I posted a thread earlier this year (February) to find out if anyone had previous experience suing Tesla about FSD:
teslamotorsclub.com
No one was able/willing to come forward with their experience, so this post is to help others out who were in the position I was.
I took delivery of my Model 3 in the first batch on 20/06/2019 - I think this may have been the first day for delivery. I had ticked the FSD option, which was £5800 on the order agreement. When ordered my Model 3 I was pretty excited about FSD - they were saying the city streets feature was going to be ready by the end of 2019, and had posted the video of a Model X navigating to the Tesla facility and parking. Clearly, history shows they were miles away from delivering on their claim.
After considering this, I thought there was a clear legal claim that I had. The basis of the claim was Consumer Rights Act 2015 (“CRA”), section 11(1), which states:
The timeline of my interaction with Tesla/the court was as follows. I have attached some of the documents to this post, but redacted my address/car reg/VIN. (I have left in the claim number and my claim - I don't feel the need to redact those.)
2023-02-21: I sent the "Letter Before Action" which set out the legal basis for my claim before starting court action [Doc attached]
2023-03-07: Tesla replied, essentially denying my claim
2023-03-07: I issued court proceedings via the Money Claim Online website, a cost of £455 [Two docs attached]
2023-04-05: Telsa filed their defence which admitted the very thing I was claiming on!
2023-06-07: The court proposed to allocate this to the Small Claims track
2023-06-09: I filed the allocation questionnaire and requested the claim was heard at my local court
2023-08-08: The proceedings were transferred to my local court
2023-10-10: The court set directions (e.g. when witness statements should be exchanged)
2023-10-12: The court set a hearing date of 17th Nov
2023-10-16: Tesla sent a settlement offer... this then led to some to and fro which I'll set out in more detail below
2023-10-27: I signed a revised settlement offer (Tesla had already signed it)
2023-11-02: Two payments received in my bank account; £5,800.00 and £2,215.22
It seems to me like Telsa's desire to settle was triggered by the court hearing date being set. Their initial settlement offer had three things I didn't like in it:
1) They only offered £5800 - but if I was successful in court I would get 8% interest on this amount from 1st Jan 2020 to the judgement, as well as court fees.
2) There was a "non-advice" clause, that I wouldn't help anyone with a similar claim to mine.
3) There was a confidentiality clause, that I wouldn't be able to discuss with anyone about the settlement.
I happened to be on my emails when Tesla's first offer came in, so I replied within two minutes with a rather cheeky email:
Anyway, after the tone had been appropriately set...! I decided to deal with the financial aspect, so I wrote back to Tesla to tell them that I thought I'd be successful in my court claim and essentially they'd have to pay the full value of the claim.
They then responded on 17th Oct with a new settlement agreement at the higher financial value I required, but £285.75 short. (They had the full amount of the claim that I issued, but my claim also had interest accruing at £1.27 per day.) I then came back to them in two emails to make a few changes:
- Add the £285.75 to the settlement amount
- Tidy up the legal language
- Remove the "non-advice" clause
- Remove the confidentiality clause
They came back to me saying they accepted most of the amendments but wouldn't remove the non-advice and confidentiality clauses.
Quite simply, I wasn't going to sign anything that put me in handcuffs and restrained what I could do. I would prefer to go to court and lose. I saw these two positions as impossible to meet in the middle - e.g. Tesla had said they're not removing the non-advice and confidentiality clauses, but I said it was a requirement for the settlement for them to do so. I didn't respond to their latest settlement offer and then on 24th Oct I had a follow up email saying they hadn't heard back from their 20th Oct email. (The 20th Oct one had the full financial value I was after, but kept the non-advice and confidentiality clauses. I replied saying:
This led to them removing the two clauses, and we then proceeded to sign the settlement, they asked for my bank details and then made payment/removed FSD from my car.
By way of commentary, I think my claim was an absolute slam-dunk from a legal POV. Their defence had set out they intend to deliver city street driving in the future; therefore they hadn't delivered it by the end of 2019 which was what their website claimed they would do. The website was the description used to sell the car, and so the website formed part of the contract - very clear breach of contract.
From Telsa's POV, I am the worst type of litigator to take on. I am not a lawyer, but deal with them quite often in my day job so I know enough to put in a small claims action with confidence. The money wasn't important to me, I felt they'd conned me and I wanted them to do the right thing and put it right. Moreover, because the money wasn't important to me I was never going to sign up to a non-advice/confidentiality clause, I think it's important that my experience is out there for others to form their own views from.
There's lots of other detail I could put into this post, but I thought these were the interesting points. Happy to answer any questions!
- FSD removed from my car, e.g. just standard Autopilot
- Tesla paying me a little over £8000
That's the summary, if you'd like to hear more read on! I posted a thread earlier this year (February) to find out if anyone had previous experience suing Tesla about FSD:
Has anyone sued Tesla for FSD costs?
I took delivery of a Model 3 with the FSD box ticked on the first day of UK deliveries, 20th June 2019. Reservation made 18th October 2016, and I think my order speccing the FSD was made 1st May 2019. (Would need to check notes on that last thing.) It's coming up to 4 years since I've had the...
teslamotorsclub.com
I took delivery of my Model 3 in the first batch on 20/06/2019 - I think this may have been the first day for delivery. I had ticked the FSD option, which was £5800 on the order agreement. When ordered my Model 3 I was pretty excited about FSD - they were saying the city streets feature was going to be ready by the end of 2019, and had posted the video of a Model X navigating to the Tesla facility and parking. Clearly, history shows they were miles away from delivering on their claim.
After considering this, I thought there was a clear legal claim that I had. The basis of the claim was Consumer Rights Act 2015 (“CRA”), section 11(1), which states:
The Tesla website during 2019 described the goods as follows:
Because I ordered my car from Tesla directly, e.g. their website, any description they used then formed part of the contract - this was the basis of my claim.
The timeline of my interaction with Tesla/the court was as follows. I have attached some of the documents to this post, but redacted my address/car reg/VIN. (I have left in the claim number and my claim - I don't feel the need to redact those.)
2023-02-21: I sent the "Letter Before Action" which set out the legal basis for my claim before starting court action [Doc attached]
2023-03-07: Tesla replied, essentially denying my claim
2023-03-07: I issued court proceedings via the Money Claim Online website, a cost of £455 [Two docs attached]
2023-04-05: Telsa filed their defence which admitted the very thing I was claiming on!
2023-06-07: The court proposed to allocate this to the Small Claims track
2023-06-09: I filed the allocation questionnaire and requested the claim was heard at my local court
2023-08-08: The proceedings were transferred to my local court
2023-10-10: The court set directions (e.g. when witness statements should be exchanged)
2023-10-12: The court set a hearing date of 17th Nov
2023-10-16: Tesla sent a settlement offer... this then led to some to and fro which I'll set out in more detail below
2023-10-27: I signed a revised settlement offer (Tesla had already signed it)
2023-11-02: Two payments received in my bank account; £5,800.00 and £2,215.22
It seems to me like Telsa's desire to settle was triggered by the court hearing date being set. Their initial settlement offer had three things I didn't like in it:
1) They only offered £5800 - but if I was successful in court I would get 8% interest on this amount from 1st Jan 2020 to the judgement, as well as court fees.
2) There was a "non-advice" clause, that I wouldn't help anyone with a similar claim to mine.
3) There was a confidentiality clause, that I wouldn't be able to discuss with anyone about the settlement.
I happened to be on my emails when Tesla's first offer came in, so I replied within two minutes with a rather cheeky email:
Anyway, after the tone had been appropriately set...! I decided to deal with the financial aspect, so I wrote back to Tesla to tell them that I thought I'd be successful in my court claim and essentially they'd have to pay the full value of the claim.
They then responded on 17th Oct with a new settlement agreement at the higher financial value I required, but £285.75 short. (They had the full amount of the claim that I issued, but my claim also had interest accruing at £1.27 per day.) I then came back to them in two emails to make a few changes:
- Add the £285.75 to the settlement amount
- Tidy up the legal language
- Remove the "non-advice" clause
- Remove the confidentiality clause
They came back to me saying they accepted most of the amendments but wouldn't remove the non-advice and confidentiality clauses.
Quite simply, I wasn't going to sign anything that put me in handcuffs and restrained what I could do. I would prefer to go to court and lose. I saw these two positions as impossible to meet in the middle - e.g. Tesla had said they're not removing the non-advice and confidentiality clauses, but I said it was a requirement for the settlement for them to do so. I didn't respond to their latest settlement offer and then on 24th Oct I had a follow up email saying they hadn't heard back from their 20th Oct email. (The 20th Oct one had the full financial value I was after, but kept the non-advice and confidentiality clauses. I replied saying:
This led to them removing the two clauses, and we then proceeded to sign the settlement, they asked for my bank details and then made payment/removed FSD from my car.
By way of commentary, I think my claim was an absolute slam-dunk from a legal POV. Their defence had set out they intend to deliver city street driving in the future; therefore they hadn't delivered it by the end of 2019 which was what their website claimed they would do. The website was the description used to sell the car, and so the website formed part of the contract - very clear breach of contract.
From Telsa's POV, I am the worst type of litigator to take on. I am not a lawyer, but deal with them quite often in my day job so I know enough to put in a small claims action with confidence. The money wasn't important to me, I felt they'd conned me and I wanted them to do the right thing and put it right. Moreover, because the money wasn't important to me I was never going to sign up to a non-advice/confidentiality clause, I think it's important that my experience is out there for others to form their own views from.
There's lots of other detail I could put into this post, but I thought these were the interesting points. Happy to answer any questions!
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