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Details behind Model X owner’s $5M+ class action lawsuit against Tesla
Following our report that a Model X owner has filed a class action law suit against Tesla, claiming a widespread defect in the vehicle’s onboard software causes sudden unattended acceleration (SUA), new details behind the suit have been obtained by Teslarati that shows a legal team aggressively targeting the core component to the Silicon Valley-based electric car maker’s fleet of vehicles.
The class action filed in federal district court claims Ji Chang Son – Korean star residing in Orange County, Calif. – crashed through his garage and into the living room of his home after his Tesla Model X accelerated suddenly and without warning on September 10, 2016, approximately one month after Mr. Son took delivery of the electric SUV. The suit claims that “Tesla has failed to properly disclose, explain, fix, or program safeguards to correct the underlying problem of unintended acceleration”, adding that “over sixteen thousand Model X owners with vehicles that could potentially accelerate out of control.
Son’s attorneys gave the court a full account of the development of the Model X, focusing on the company’s claim that the Model X is “the safest, fastest and most capable sport utility vehicle in history.” On the contrary, according to Son’s attorneys. They allege the Model X has a safety defect that permits the car to accelerate at full speed directly into solid objects, such as the exterior wall of Son’s home. In particular, they point out that 8 written complaints have already been filed with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration from other Model X owners who report similar occurrences while driving their cars.
The lawsuit reads,
“Irrespective of whether the SUA events in the Model X are caused by mechanical issues with the accelerator pedal, an unknown failure in the electronic motor control system, a failure in other aspects of the electrical, mechanical, or computer systems, or some instances of pedal misapplication, the Model X is defective and unsafe. Tesla’s lack of response to this phenomenon is even more confounding when the vehicle is already equipped with the hardware necessary for the vehicle’s computer to be able to intercede to prevent unintended acceleration into fixed objects such as walls, fences, and buildings.
Despite repeated instances of Model X drivers reporting uncommanded full power acceleration while parking, Tesla has failed to develop and implement computer algorithms that would eliminate the danger of full power acceleration into fixed objects.This failure to provide a programming fix is especially confounding for a vehicle that knows when it is located at the driver’s home and is being parked in the garage, yet carries out an instruction, regardless of whether through an error by the vehicle control systems or by driver pedal misapplication, to accelerate at full power into the garage wall.
Further, not only has Tesla failed to fix the problems, it has chosen instead to follow in the footsteps of other automobile manufacturers and simply blame the driver.”
One problem, according to Son’s attorneys, is the software that controls the Automatic Emergency Braking system. Tesla has programmed that feature to disengage in order to allow drivers to make emergency maneuvers, “in situations where you are taking action to avoid a potential collision. For example:
- You turn the steering wheel sharply.
- You press the accelerator pedal.
- You press and release the brake pedal.
- A vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian, is no longer detected ahead.”
In other words, say the attorneys, a Model X will drive straight into a solid wall if that is what the system thinks the driver wants it to do. “Apparently, this includes situations where the computer believes, rightly or wrongly, that the driver is commanding full power acceleration directly into fixed objects immediately in front of the vehicle.”
Class action lawsuits are complex and highly specialized legal actions. Federal law requires that the damages alleged for the entire class exceed $5 million. The plaintiff’s attorney have done so by claiming that Tesla is aware of at least two other instances in which drivers allege sudden unintended acceleration occurred while driving their Model X at low speeds. They then extrapolate those numbers to suggest that the rate of SUA incidents attributable to the Model X is 64 per 100,000 vehicles — substantially higher than for any other vehicle in history.
Page 12 of JI CHANG SON vs. TESLA MOTORS class action complaint
They point out that the incidence rate of SUA incidents for Toyota vehicles — which grabbed national headlines in 2010 — was far lower. They then go on to remind the court that Toyota paid several hundred million dollars to SUA victims as well as a $1.2 billion federal fine. Notice that the chart included in the pleadings shows an exaggerated and disproportionate projected SUA incidence rate for the Model X highlighted in bright red.
Tesla says its data retrieved from the vehicle’s blackbox shows the accelerator in Son’s Model X was fully depressed when the accident occurred. The question for the court will be whether the driver pressed the wrong pedal or whether the vehicle accelerated on its own. It is unclear whether a software failure would register the pedal as fully depressed even if it was not physically operated by the driver.
Plaintiffs always have the burden of proving their allegations. Attorneys for injured parties often rely on a legal doctrine known as res ipsa loquitur, which is Latin for “the thing speaks for itself.” Loosely translated, it means “we don’t know what is wrong with your product that you designed and built, but you know or should know.” Res ipsa loquitur shifts the burden of proof onto the defendant, which makes it much easier for a plaintiff to prevail in court.
One advantage the plaintiff gains from filing suit is the ability to discover what information Tesla has that is not yet public. Does Tesla know something it isn’t telling its customers? We may find out as this litigation goes forward.
We’ve provided a copy of the entire class action filing below.
[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Son-vs-Telsa-class-action-8-16-cv-2282.pdf”]
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next Starship launch is about to attempt its biggest leap yet
SpaceX targets September 22 for Starship Flight 14, its first attempt to reach real orbit.
SpaceX has set September 22 as the target date for Starship’s 14th test flight, and this one carries a different goal than any of the 13 that came before it. Every previous Starship mission has intentionally flown a suborbital arc, reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launched. Flight 14 is designed to send the craft into a genuine orbit around Earth for the first time.
The launch window opens at 7:15 a.m. Central time at Starbase in South Texas and runs for 75 minutes, pending regulatory approval, according to SpaceX’s mission description published Tuesday. If the flight goes as planned, Starship will circle the planet roughly six times at an altitude near 275 kilometers over about ten hours before a deorbit burn sends it toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, a departure from the Indian Ocean recoveries used on the last several flights.
The mission also marks the first attempt to put a working batch of Starlink V3 satellites into actual service. Flight 13 carried 20 of the new satellites in July, but because that mission never left a suborbital trajectory, the payload reentered along with the ship instead of separating into orbit.
SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit
Each V3 satellite is rated for roughly one terabit per second of downlink capacity, so a successful deployment on Flight 14 would be SpaceX’s largest single jump in network bandwidth since Starlink began flying on Falcon 9.
Flight 13 still did the heavier lifting on the technical side. That July mission flew a deliberately more stressful reentry profile to test Starship’s heat shield, and the ship survived its softest splashdown yet, intact enough for drone inspections shortly after landing. Elon Musk said the flight delivered “all the heat shield data we needed and then some,” a result Teslarati covered in detail when he later said SpaceX had solved the vehicle’s biggest reusability challenge. Flight 14 is where SpaceX starts spending that confidence on an actual orbital insertion rather than another controlled fall back to Earth.
One thing Flight 14 will not attempt is a tower catch of the ship. Musk floated the idea right after Flight 13, but walked the timeline back in August, saying a catch attempt was more likely “in a few months.” The Super Heavy booster will still aim for its own recovery, targeting an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America, the same approach used on recent flights.
September 22 is SpaceX’s own target, not a locked date. Starship’s schedule has slipped before over hardware readiness and FAA sign off, and the company has said as much in its own mission notes. But the plan itself represents the clearest marker yet that Starship is moving from a suborbital test program into something meant to carry paying payloads and, eventually, people.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.
Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.
Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”
The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.
Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.
Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking
The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.
Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.
The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.
Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.
Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.
He said:
“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”
Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:
It’s out of this world
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Excitement guaranteed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2026
Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.
Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.
However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.
SpaceX’s next Starship launch is about to attempt its biggest leap yet
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
