UK Tesla Owner Secures $10,000 Settlement After Self-Driving Features Fail to Deliver
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc. has agreed to pay a $10,000 settlement to a UK-based Tesla owner, Edward Butler, who took the company to court over its failure to provide promised full self-driving (FSD) features. The settlement came after Butler filed a claim in a small claims court, citing a violation of the Consumer Rights Act of 2015.
Butler purchased the FSD option for his Model 3 in 2019 for £5,800 ($7,100) and claimed that Tesla did not meet certain promised features associated with FSD, including traffic light recognition and automatic driving on city streets. Although Tesla eventually delivered the traffic light recognition feature in the UK in 2020, it missed its own deadline, and the automatic driving feature remains absent, even after almost four years.
Initially, Tesla rejected Butler’s claim, but after further discussions and Butler’s refusal to accept settlements with restrictions or instructions on filing similar claims, Tesla eventually agreed to the settlement. The total settlement amount, including interest and court fees, came to £8,015.22 ($9,860). While this settlement does not establish a legal precedent, it implies a strong case against Tesla for breaching UK advertising laws.
The incident sheds light on concerns surrounding Tesla’s self-driving software, which recently faced scrutiny after a Tesla vehicle operating in Autopilot mode failed to avoid a collision with an oncoming vehicle.
This is not the first time Tesla has faced legal action related to its claims about FSD. In a previous case, the company was mandated to upgrade a driver’s self-driving computer for free after originally planning to charge $1,500 for the hardware that owners had already purchased.
Interestingly, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently boasted about FSD’s ability to navigate autonomously without human intervention, claiming that his car drove him around Austin without requiring his input, even in the presence of large crowds.
While the settlement provides some resolution for the UK-based Tesla owner, it highlights the ongoing challenges faced by Tesla in delivering fully autonomous driving capabilities and meeting customer expectations. The case also reinforces the need for transparency and accountability in the advertising of self-driving features and raises questions about the future of autonomous driving technology.
