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Despite covering Tesla closely for almost a decade and a half, some stories sneak through. I thought Tesla had “gotten away with it” up until now in regards to very misleading marketing and claims around Tesla “Full Self Driving” and it surprised me that there had never been any significant progress on a class action lawsuit around this. Well, I found out otherwise yesterday.
Before I get to that, though, I think it’s important to explain why a lawsuit seems valid or even highly likely. I have never given a lot of weight to the idea that people buying Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) thought they could turn FSD on and go to sleep while the car drives itself the day they bought it. I do think a few people may have thought so, because they didn’t follow the tech closely and didn’t pay attention to the fine print, just the name — but I have always figured there are enough disclaimers in place that such an argument is not very reasonable. (That would be more a case of the customer not paying adequate attention — unless they were blatantly told something else in a store or on a test drive.)
However, Elon Musk has made a number of claims over the years about the near future that have been so absurdly false in retrospect that it’s been a wonder that he didn’t get nailed in a class action case because of them. For example, he claimed in October 2016 that a Tesla would autonomously drive itself from Los Angeles to New York City by the end of 2017. Someone could have easily bought Tesla FSD in November 2016 with the expectation it could do that in a year. That was a clear, straightforward, specific claim from the CEO of the company. Just before I bought Tesla FSD in mid-2019, Musk had hyped up how much the capabilities were about to improve, that “feature complete” Full Self Driving would be implemented by the end of the year, and said various things about how the price of FSD would go up enormously, Tesla vehicles sold at that time would be appreciating assets, and Teslas would be able to make a ton of money for their owners fairly soon if they bought FSD. I have made exactly $0 on my 2019 Model 3 with FSD so far, and I wonder what Tesla would say if I brought it to a store today demanding that they buy the vehicle off of me for more than I spent on it because it was going to be an appreciating asset and has FSD. Based on Elon Musk’s comments, should I have assumed FSD would be truly full self driving by now and that I could be operating the car as a robotaxi, or should I have assumed the software suite would be approximately useless for me for the coming 6 and a half years (as it has been)? There are examples like these almost every year from Musk making huge, bold claims about how soon Tesla FSD would be working for real.
As just one more example, there’s a famous/infamous video from many years ago where Tesla “demonstrated” full self driving, but actually misled people purposefully on what it could do at the time. Earlier today, regarding that video, a commenter (Matthew Berg) wrote: “The first time I heard of FSD was from a video where they claimed the only reason there was a driver at all was for regulatory compliance. The caveat that you had to keep your hands on the wheel was in an end note, written in a tiny font in a top-flight grey.” Indeed — they indicated the tech was much more capable than it was and that they basically just needed to get rid of some pesky regulations and people could let the car drive itself for real.
So, how have there not been any big class action lawsuits on this?
Well, one of our readers, “Matthew2312,” mentioned just such a case (or, more specifically, combined cases) a couple of days ago in the comments on another article — LoSavio and Matsko v Tesla. Asking for more info on that, he provided the following summary from Google Gemini:
Executive Summary of Status (January 2026)
Current Status: Active Class Action (Certified).
Recent Major Ruling: On August 18, 2025, U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin granted LoSavio’s motion for class certification.
Appeal Pending: As of December 18, 2025, Tesla has filed a petition for permission to appeal this certification to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Docket No. 25-7927).
Key Distinction: The court previously ruled (September 2023) that plaintiffs who signed Tesla’s arbitration agreement (including Matsko) must settle disputes individually. LoSavio remains in federal court because he successfully argued he was not bound by those specific arbitration terms.
Detailed Case Developments
1. Class Certification (August 2025)
Judge Lin’s August 2025 order certified a class of Tesla owners who purchased vehicles based on specific alleged misrepresentations regarding Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities. The court allowed the case to proceed on grounds of fraud and negligence, specifically focusing on two core categories of statements made by Tesla and CEO Elon Musk between October 2016 and August 2024:
The “Hardware Statement”: Claims that all vehicles produced at the factory contained the necessary hardware for full self-driving capability (SAE Level 5) pending only software validation.
The “Cross-Country Statement”: Claims that a Tesla vehicle would soon be able to drive itself autonomously from Los Angeles to New York without human intervention.
The court dismissed claims related to breach of warranty but permitted the fraud-based claims to move forward.
2. Discovery and Evidence (2025)
Throughout 2025, the plaintiffs won key discovery disputes.
Deposition of Leadership: In April 2025, the court granted LoSavio’s motion to compel Elon Musk and Autopilot Director Ashok Elluswamy to serve as custodians for discovery. The court reasoned that because Musk personally made many of the “Cross-Country” statements, his direct knowledge and communications were relevant to establishing potential falsity or intent.
Hardware Limitations: Plaintiffs have presented evidence arguing that Tesla has not applied for regulatory approval for SAE Level 3+ autonomy in California, contradicting marketing claims that the cars were “hardware ready” for such capabilities.
3. Ninth Circuit Appeal (December 2025 – Present)
Tesla aggressively moved to block the class certification.
Filing: In mid-December 2025, Tesla filed an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
Mediation: A mediation questionnaire was filed on December 19, 2025, a standard procedural step in the Ninth Circuit to determine if a settlement is feasible before full appellate briefing.
Timeline: If mediation fails, the appeal briefing schedule extends into Spring 2026, with Tesla’s opening brief due in March 2026.
Strategic Implications
This case is distinct from other Autopilot litigation (such as wrongful death suits) because it attacks the economic injury of consumers rather than physical safety defects. The core argument is that consumers paid thousands of dollars (e.g., for the FSD package) for functionality that Tesla knew it could not deliver on the promised timeline, thereby artificially inflating the vehicle’s value.
Because Matsko was compelled to arbitration, the public docket and high-profile rulings currently center almost entirely on LoSavio.
Of course, Google Gemini is not a lawyer, “Matthew2312” is not a lawyer, and I am not a lawyer. (I did very well in all of my college and grad school law classes, though, and am not surprised that the key statements that always hung in my head from Elon Musk are ones being focused on in these lawsuits.) If anyone reading this is a lawyer, especially in this field of law, and would like to chime in with more insights on this, I’d love that. However, barring that, it seems to me that a significant class action lawsuit on Elon Musk’s FSD and robotaxi claims is moving forward through the system. I wonder if there will be any big news on this in 2026.
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