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Tesla FSD’s prolonged release doesn’t make it a ‘fraud,’ company says
Tesla Full Self-Driving’s prolonged release doesn’t make it a “fraud,” the company said in a motion to dismiss a case.
Tesla is currently involved in a class-action lawsuit from a few Autopilot and Full Self-Driving customers and has recently filed a motion to dismiss the case with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. In that motion, a statement was made by Tesla’s attorneys that may have been taken out of context by some media reports.
Teslarati obtained a copy of the motion, and here is what we found.
After some background information on FSD, Tesla noted that each of the plaintiffs purchased a vehicle, and “all but one allegedly purchase the FSDC package.” (FSDC is an acronym for full self-driving capability.)
“Plaintiffs knew at the time of purchase that their cars were not completely autonomous. And they knew that the timeline towards more complete autonomy was contingent upon numerous factors, including software development and regulatory approval. Yet now they sue Tesla, complaining that their cars are not completely autonomous.”
The document noted that four out of five of the named plaintiffs have valid arbitration agreements with Tesla that should be enforced and cover all of their claims. The one plaintiff who opted out “advanced a consolidated complaint riddled with defects, and that should be dismissed.”
The plaintiff “sued too late–five years after he purchased his vehicle and the optional software package, well after any of his claims accrued. All of his claims are time-barred and should be dismissed. Moreover, the hundreds-of-paragraph, narrative complaint fails to support a single cognizable legal theory. The Complaint makes no mention of the parties’ written contract or Tesla’s car warranty. It instead cherry-picks numerous statements allegedly made by Tesla and attempts to manufacture claims for fraud and breach of warranty.”
Tesla’s attorneys made several statements, including that headline-worthy one regarding FSD and failure. However, the attorneys never claimed that FSD is a failure. In the document, the attorneys pointed out that the complaint “identifies no statement that Tesla made that was fraudulent.”
Additionally, it added that no there was no statement made that Tesla’s vehicles, including those equipped with the FSDC package, were fully autonomous at the time of the Plaintiff’s purchase. Tesla’s website also made it very clear that those vehicles were not.
Tesla’s attorneys noted that the plaintiff allegedly researched Tesla’s online and public statements and reviewed them before buying his vehicles. The labels of “Autopilot,” “Enhanced Autopilot,” or “Full Self-Driving Capability” didn’t mean that the vehicles were fully autonomous. Tesla’s attorneys also noted that Tesla’s user manuals plainly showed this as well.
“Nor would any reasonable consumer purchase a Tesla vehicle with the belief that it is fully autonomous based solely on these labels,” the attorneys said.
Instead, each of the plaintiffs alleged that they “decided to purchase [his or her] vehicle and the ADAS packages after researching, reviewing, and relying on Tesla’s online and other public statements.”
The plaintiff’s “assertion that Tesla promised the vehicles were already fully autonomous when they were sold rings hollow,” the attorneys stated.
“His assertion that Tesla promised to release completely autonomous capabilities ‘within a reasonable time after,’ his purchase fares no better.”
“No allegations show that Tesla promised that the FSDC package would enable full autonomy within a specified period of time. Many of the statements quoted in the Complaint did not even concern the FSDC package,” the attorneys said, adding that this makes it irrelevant to the plaintiff’s claims.
“In addition, the quoted statements were also often accompanied by and subject to the qualifier that a release of fully autonomous capabilities to the general public would require government approval, a variable over which Tesla had no control, and that any regulatory clearance would require a vast amount of data to show that completely autonomous driving is significantly safer than human driving.”
The attorneys cited another federal court that said similar statements “do not constitute fraud” because they indicate that Tesla wasn’t making the absolute representation the Plaintiff said he was.
“Same here. Especially under the heightened Rule 9(b) standard, no allegation suggests that the aspirational statements that Tesla did make were, somehow, false when made. See Richardson, 2000 WL.”
“To the contrary, allegations in the Complaint demonstrate that Tesla has been constantly improving its ADAS technology by releasing software updates, with a goal of achieving more and better autonomy capabilities in the future.”
“Mere failure to realize a long-term, aspirational goal is not fraud.“
In reference to the above statement, the attorneys pointed out that the courts often rejected the argument that a plaintiff can prove the fraudulent intent by pointing to Tesla’s “subsequent failure to perform under the agreement.”
Since launching the software in 2015, Tesla has made a lot of progress toward FSD and autonomous. Tesla has had two AI Day events explaining the technology being developed and used. And Tesla has since launched an FSD Beta testing program, and you can read the recent Tesla FSD Beta news here.
Disclosure: Johnna is a $TSLA shareholder and believes in Tesla’s mission.
Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles.
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla has long emphasized that large-scale real-world data is central to improving its neural network-based approach to autonomy. Each mile driven with FSD (Supervised) engaged contributes additional edge cases and scenario training for the system.
The milestone also brings Tesla closer to a benchmark previously outlined by CEO Elon Musk. Musk has stated that roughly 10 billion miles of training data may be needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving at scale, citing the “long tail” of rare but complex driving situations that must be learned through experience.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable.
As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
With the fleet now past 8.4 billion cumulative miles, Tesla’s supervised system is approaching that threshold, even as regulatory approval for fully unsupervised deployment remains subject to further validation and oversight.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Elon Musk fired back at Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales after the longtime online encyclopedia leader dismissed xAI’s new AI-powered alternative, Grokipedia, as a “ridiculous” idea that is bound to fail.
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Wales made the comments while answering questions about Wikipedia’s neutrality. According to Wales, Wikipedia prides itself on neutrality.
“One of our core values at Wikipedia is neutrality. A neutral point of view is non-negotiable. It’s in the community, unquestioned… The idea that we’ve become somehow ‘Wokepidea’ is just not true,” Wales said.
When asked about potential competition from Grokipedia, Wales downplayed the situation. “There is no competition. I don’t know if anyone uses Grokipedia. I think it is a ridiculous idea that will never work,” Wales wrote.
After Grokipedia went live, Larry Sanger, also a co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote on X that his initial impression of the AI-powered Wikipedia alternative was “very OK.”
“My initial impression, looking at my own article and poking around here and there, is that Grokipedia is very OK. The jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually better than Wikipedia. But at this point I would have to say ‘maybe!’” Sanger stated.
Musk responded to Sanger’s assessment by saying it was “accurate.” In a separate post, he added that even in its V0.1 form, Grokipedia was already better than Wikipedia.
During a past appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has drifted from its original vision, citing concerns about how its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” framework categorizes publications by perceived credibility. As per Sanger, Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” list leans heavily left, with conservative publications getting effectively blacklisted in favor of their more liberal counterparts.
As of writing, Grokipedia has reportedly surpassed 80% of English Wikipedia’s article count.
News
Tesla Sweden appeals after grid company refuses to restore existing Supercharger due to union strike
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons.
Tesla Sweden is seeking regulatory intervention after a Swedish power grid company refused to reconnect an already operational Supercharger station in Åre due to ongoing union sympathy actions.
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons. A temporary construction power cabinet supplying the station had fallen over, described by Tesla as occurring “under unclear circumstances.” The power was then cut at the request of Tesla’s installation contractor to allow safe repair work.
While the safety issue was resolved, the station has not been brought back online. Stefan Sedin, CEO of Jämtkraft elnät, told Dagens Arbete (DA) that power will not be restored to the existing Supercharger station as long as the electric vehicle maker’s union issues are ongoing.
“One of our installers noticed that the construction power had been backed up and was on the ground. We asked Tesla to fix the system, and their installation company in turn asked us to cut the power so that they could do the work safely.
“When everything was restored, the question arose: ‘Wait a minute, can we reconnect the station to the electricity grid? Or what does the notice actually say?’ We consulted with our employer organization, who were clear that as long as sympathy measures are in place, we cannot reconnect this facility,” Sedin said.
The union’s sympathy actions, which began in March 2024, apply to work involving “planning, preparation, new connections, grid expansion, service, maintenance and repairs” of Tesla’s charging infrastructure in Sweden.
Tesla Sweden has argued that reconnecting an existing facility is not equivalent to establishing a new grid connection. In a filing to the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate, the company stated that reconnecting the installation “is therefore not covered by the sympathy measures and cannot therefore constitute a reason for not reconnecting the facility to the electricity grid.”
Sedin, for his part, noted that Tesla’s issue with the Supercharger is quite unique. And while Jämtkraft elnät itself has no issue with Tesla, its actions are based on the unions’ sympathy measures against the electric vehicle maker.
“This is absolutely the first time that I have been involved in matters relating to union conflicts or sympathy measures. That is why we have relied entirely on the assessment of our employer organization. This is not something that we have made any decisions about ourselves at all.
“It is not that Jämtkraft elnät has a conflict with Tesla, but our actions are based on these sympathy measures. Should it turn out that we have made an incorrect assessment, we will correct ourselves. It is no more difficult than that for us,” the executive said.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
