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In a victory for Tesla, a California federal judge ruled over the weekend that a group of Tesla owners cannot pursue in court claims that the company falsely advertised<\/a> its automated features. Instead, they will have to face individual arbitration.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam\u2019s ruling isn\u2019t a win for the defensibility of Tesla\u2019s advanced driver assistance systems, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD), but simply for Tesla\u2019s terms and conditions. The plaintiffs who filed the proposed class action in September 2022 did in fact agree to arbitrate any legal claims against the company when they signed on the dotted line, according to the judge. They had 30 days to opt out, and none chose to do so.<\/p>\n Forced arbitration has been a stalwart partner in the tech industry. Tesla\u2019s success in dodging a class action lawsuit could encourage other automakers to lean more heavily on this tactic.<\/p>\n \u201cIn some respects, it probably does put down a marker that these types of claims will likely face these types of challenges,\u201d Ryan Koppelman, partner at law firm Alston & Bird, told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Koppelman noted that arbitration is a common legal strategy used by companies to avoid individual claims and class actions like this one.<\/p>\n In this specific case, a fifth plaintiff did opt out of arbitration, but Judge Gilliam ruled to\u00a0dismiss their claims, as they waited too long to sue, according to court documents.<\/p>\n \u201cThe statue of limitation aspect is interesting because the claims at issue here had to do with what the Tesla products will be capable of in the future, as well as what they were supposedly capable of at the time of sale,\u201d said Koppelman.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs in the case all claimed to have spent thousands of dollars on unreliable and dangerous technology that has caused accidents, some resulting in death. Tesla has denied wrongdoing and moved to send the claims to arbitration, after citing the plaintiffs\u2019 acceptance of the arbitration agreement.<\/p>\n Judge Gilliam also denied the plaintiffs\u2019 motion for preliminary injunction \u201cprohibiting the defendant from continuing to engage in its allegedly illegal and deceptive practices.\u201d In effect, the plaintiffs asked the court to force Tesla to stop marketing their ADAS as providing \u201cfull self-driving capability\u201d; to stop selling and de-activate their FSD beta software; and to alert all customers that Tesla\u2019s use of terms like \u201cfull self-driving capability,\u201d \u201cself-driving\u201d and \u201cautonomous\u201d to describe the ADAS technology was inaccurate.<\/p>\n The original complaint, filed in September 2022<\/a>, alleged that Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been deceitfully advertising its automated driving features as either fully functioning or close to being \u201csolved\u201d since 2016, despite knowing full well that the capabilities of Autopilot and FSD don\u2019t live up to the hype.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs alleged that Tesla\u2019s ADAS cause vehicles to run red lights, miss turns and veer into traffic, all the while costing Tesla owners thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n Briggs Matsko, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he paid $5,000 for his 2018 Tesla Model X to get Enhanced Autopilot. Tesla\u2019s FSD costs an additional $12,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n The failed class action isn\u2019t the only time Tesla\u2019s so-called self-driving technology has come under scrutiny. Earlier this year, Musk was found to have overseen a 2016 video<\/a> that overstated the capabilities of Autopilot.<\/p>\n The revelation came from\u00a0a deposition from a senior engineer<\/a> taken as evidence in\u00a0a lawsuit against Tesla for a fatal 2018 crash<\/a>\u00a0involving former Apple engineer Walter Huang. The lawsuit alleges that errors by Autopilot, and Huang\u2019s misplaced trust in the capabilities of the system, caused the crash.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nFalsely<\/b>\u00a0advertising Autopilot and FSD<\/strong><\/h2>\n