70 comments

  • joshribakoff 2 hours ago

    I recovered ~$250,000 under beverly song act (California lemon law). (My principal and interest back for multiple vehicles)

    I repeatedly complained it was activating “emergency lane departure” while driving manually, even after disabling the setting. This had the effect of the vehicles swerving towards cross walks or walls.

    Clearly a software issue but they played dumb and forced me to book service visits and refused to provide loaners.

    Each time they returned the vehicle(s) with a short resolution of “expected characteristic”.

    I read my purchase agreement, emailed them, and simply stated they are obliged to buy back my fleet given its a hazard to public safety. They obliged without discussion.

    There were also other persistent issues with the vehicle beyond the software but i suspect the software put them into a double bind where if they “fix” it they create more liability via accidental disengagements.

    • SilverElfin 2 hours ago

      I’ve had this type of issue on multiple European car brands. Software issues with driver assistance features, which they keep ignoring. Things like sudden unexplained braking, not showing down due to cars stopped ahead, swerving randomly... I accepted it because getting them to cover anything, even physical things, even under warranty. They just come up with self serving guidelines and excuses.

      Glad you had success. Did it require lawyers?

      • lokar 2 hours ago

        I (also in CA) lemon returned a Mercedes EV. Same kind of thing, they could not fix repeated software issues w/ the collision avoidance features.

        I called them up, gave a short explanation, and they sent me to their vendor who handles the returns, no issues. Full price (including tax etc) back.

        AIUI, they know not to fight, since in CA when they loose, they pay your legal fees.

      • walrus01 an hour ago

        At this point I want basically no driver assistance features except maybe an automatic cruise control speed adjustment to vehicle directly in the lane ahead based on forward facing radar data. Many of them seem to be much more troublesome or buggy than they're worth.

        • jrumbut 38 minutes ago

          I'll be honest, that braking assist has saved me from a couple parking lot dings. That's worth something.

          The problem is I drive in a city with really narrow roads and it triggers the collision warning all over the place. I've also had it slam the brakes in a situation where that was not a good idea at all.

          The forward attention warning ("you should take a break") is another one I'd love to be able to tune. I have a lot of late nights at work, falling asleep or becoming distracted while driving is a very real hazard that I appreciate, but it's absurdly sensitive.

        • fc417fc802 an hour ago

          I don't have a "modern" vehicle but automated following distance is the only thing I feel like I'm missing out on. Everything else feels like I'm dodging bullets.

          Unfortunately not upgrading means missing out on improvements to physical safety in the event of a crash.

        • cduzz 33 minutes ago

          I've been quite happy with my "first generation" tesla with the mobileye system. It has only tried to kill me a couple times in 6 years of driving it; it is not terribly smart but within the system's limits it is very stable. I certainly don't trust it to drive unattended, but it does offload 5-30% of the toil of driving on highways, which is pretty nice. Offloading 50-80% but constantly wondering "is it going to try to kill me?" I don't think would be as relaxing, though I understand lots of people have chosen to just not worry, which I guess is fine...

          At the time I got the car I wasn't sure if I wanted the old "totally obsolete" AP1 or the "probably going to get way better (cough)" AP2; I'm glad I got the obsolete version....

          I wonder if there are modern cars with systems comparable to the mobileye system from the original tesla setup.

          • arijun 16 minutes ago

            Mobileye still sells to a large fraction of manufacturers (I think a plurality if not majority). You will still get variation in implementation, as Mobileye only does the sensing side, and the integration is done by the OEM.

        • dmix an hour ago

          I've heard new Toyota's sensors cause it to constantly beep and you can't turn it off. Probably due to a regulation somewhere.

  • 827a 10 minutes ago

    The real problem, which I think the article does a poor job of making clear: Tesla sold millions of cars before the current generation Hardware 4 vehicles with $10,000 full self driving packages which never really materialized convincingly ‘full’ self-driving capability. There’s fair arguments for the HW4 vehicles not having FSD either, maybe because it needs to be supervised or isn’t perfect or whatever. But the HW4 experience is good enough that I don’t think many HW4 owners are angry; it’s by far the best consumer self driving experience you can buy, and is very good. It’s the HW3 owners that got screwed and absolutely deserve money back.

  • hamasho an hour ago

    So I skimmed several articles and the reasons why the Theranos CEO was sentenced to 11 years are

      1. The scale of the fraud was too big
      2. From emails it seemed she intentionally tricked investors
      3. The product, medical equipment, endangered patients.
    
    I think this can be applied to Tesla too (though I'm not sure there is enough evidence of 2). Shouldn't someone in charge be sentenced to at least a few years?
    • justapassenger an hour ago

      2 more, most important reasons she was sentenced:

      1. She stopped making money for rich people.

      2. She herself wasn’t rich enough.

      Leon is too rich, and he keeps on making money for the right people.

    • Pxtl 38 minutes ago

      Think about who she ripped off and the difference will be obvious.

  • 6gvONxR4sf7o 15 minutes ago

    Why just the $10k? Could you get a full refund? If I order a $12 burrito and you give me a $10 sandwich, I would feel owed my $12 back, not the $2 difference in price.

  • fhn 2 hours ago

    "court made a judgment in his favor in the amount of $10,672.88, the amount Gawiser paid for FSD, including taxes and court fees." should include interest as well

    • bobro 23 minutes ago

      The judgement also includes interest, 6.75% per year.

    • walrus01 an hour ago

      To be truly fair should also adjust for inflation of US dollar of $10672 at the time he purchased it vs. April 2026.

      For instance CPI inflation calculator says 10672 in Jan. 2022 is $12,534.44 today.

  • vzaliva 21 minutes ago

    He should publish a "bring Tesla to small court" kit, with all documents other people in the similar situation can use to sue them.

  • bdcravens 2 hours ago

    It's not him they're fighting, it's precedence and the impending flood of lawsuits.

    • dmix an hour ago

      It's a small claims court, there is no precedence. Tesla didn't even reply so it just went to default judgement

      The article says there's already been other small claims over this where they settled, such as in 2023 in the UK also for $10k

    • walrus01 2 hours ago

      I look forward to the day when this goes further up the hierarchy of US domestic courts, and some final decision is reached ordering Tesla to pay back the money every purchaser of "full self driving" paid for something that is clearly not level 4 or level 5 autonomy.

      • tencentshill 6 minutes ago

        This is a solved problem. They have plenty of bagholders willing to donate to the cause.

  • KumaBear 3 hours ago

    Earning calls are when CEO’s are telling the truth about their products. Knowing Tesla’s history of making payments he won’t see a dime. I’m no lawyer but he should set up a publicity stunt like the man who seized Bank of America’s equipment in order to get paid in full the same day. (George and Ora Lee, successfully seized assets from a Bank of America branch after the bank wrongly foreclosed on their home)

    • jer0me 3 hours ago

      I think you mean Warren and Maureen Nyerges: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/couple-almost-forecloses-on-ban...

      George and Ora Lee appear to be a couple who died hours apart in 2016 after being married for 58 years.

      • KumaBear 3 hours ago

        Yea you are right. Google failed me once again.

      • CamperBob2 3 hours ago

        "Yeah, so they won't be giving the Bank of America any more trouble, capisce?" -- Bank of America

        • sanex 3 hours ago

          BoA having roots in the Bank of Italy makes this even funnier.

          • EFreethought 2 hours ago

            Actually it does not have roots in Bank of Italy.

            In 2000, NationsBank in Charlotte bought Bank of America. They used the BofA name, but the NB people ran things. Hugh McColl had been the CEO of NB for years, and he was CEO of BofA for a year. The next CEO, Ken Lewis, was also from NB. I worked for BofA in Chicago from 2001 to 2009. I talked to people in Charlotte all the time. I almost never talked to people in California.

            Now that I think about it, I dealt with people in a lot of regions of the US, but almost nobody on the West Coast.

    • xnx 3 hours ago

      > George and Ora Lee, successfully seized assets from a Bank of America branch after the bank wrongly foreclosed on their home

      This is the type of person that deserves to have a statue in public

  • wrs 2 hours ago

    That idea of a simultaneous small claims day is brilliant. I hope somebody is vibecoding that site up right now.

    • JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago

      Is there a fuck-you option by which a large company can force escalating costs on you through small claims? Can they, for example, remove it to a federal court?

      • jfim 2 hours ago

        I don't think they can, but at the same time they can appeal a judgement that's unfavorable to them. Appeals in small claims allow for having attorneys present, at least in California, and it's another day in court that you'll have to argue your case.

      • xoa an hour ago

        >Is there a fuck-you option by which a large company can force escalating costs on you through small claims?

        It'll vary by state, in general I don't think so? Or at least not if (as apparently was the case here) they don't have anything preventing it in some contractual agreement. In some states a party can appeal to a superior court, but that's not a new trial redo, the judge simply reviews what happened and see if it looks reasonably kosher. If it was they still lose.

        The big check on small claims cases is, well, that they're small claims. Nobody could go after a full refund for the cost of a vehicle there for example. If you look at the maximum amounts by state [0], in lots of them even the $10k here would be above the limit (Kentucky is still at $2500 max). My state also was quite low until fairly recently, just because there's no automatic adjustment for inflation and $2500 in 1980 went a lot further than now and state legislature hadn't gotten around to adjusting it up for decades.

        And in small claims the winner can generally recover reasonable costs and fees on top of damages (as happened here). And it's 50 different states a company with a national problem would have to get separate attorneys for to deal with. It's one of the few places where the asymmetry is somewhat more towards companies, without any need for the plaintiff to get a lawyer themselves and given that they're almost always going to be physically much closer, it's just a lot more costly for a company to drag it out. They're not going to be setting any useful precedent vs any other small claims, and the max amount is small enough that it's rarely going to be worth it if their claims are weak. Someone angry enough to go to small claims is much more likely to stick to it through sheer bloody mindedness, which is basically all they actually need.

        I think normally companies simply just don't create enough of a small claims problem for themselves for any of this to be more than a rounding error. Elon Musk may have somehow managed it though?

        ----

        0: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-h...

    • walrus01 an hour ago

      Be sure to vibe code a way for everyone to save money and hire the same process serving company to do service by hand of multiple suits in bulk at the same time.

  • the__alchemist 3 hours ago

    The "Full" in "Full Self Driving" was one of the giveaways. It's like packaged food labeled with "Real" ("Real cheese" etc)

    • Neywiny 2 hours ago

      Not sure I agree with your second sentence, at least in the US. I may see "cheese product" or "dairy product" or "cheese flavor" but if it says real cheese, it's real cheese. My favorite example was seeing "onion (then in tiny text 'flavored') rings"

      • gregschlom 2 hours ago

        The point is that if you have to say it's made with real cheese, the food is complete junk. Even though the cheese may technically be real.

      • elif 2 hours ago

        They even banned the term "soy milk"

        It's now called "non dairy soy beverage" on every carton.

        • vel0city an hour ago

          We should just put non-dairy on all beverages that are non-dairy. Non-dairy Mountain Dew. Non-dairy sweetened lemon beverage. Non-dairy gin. Non-dairy water.

          • fc417fc802 39 minutes ago

            Should probably also mark gluten and lead while you're at it, among other things. Also what about radioactive isotope content? We know how important that is thanks to Intel.

        • Pxtl 35 minutes ago

          Europe did the same thing with veggie burgers. Which confuses me because there are a zillion non-beef things called burgers.

  • asdG17l 3 hours ago

    But remember folks that Musk wants the best for humanity, is a humanist, wants to help all people and the future will be so awesome that no one will have to work and everyone will live in a penthouse.

    His X says so daily, so it must be true.

  • nubinetwork 3 hours ago

    Be smart and take a free battery.

    • ezfe 2 hours ago

      What do you mean by that?

  • charcircuit 3 hours ago

    From what I've seen on YouTube the cars do drive themselves. This seems more like the type of thing with AI where people change the goal posts of what AI means. Just because a car did not slow down in a school zone, that doesn't mean that the car wasn't driving itself.

    • AlotOfReading 3 hours ago

      This is a common misconception. People tend to think driving is controlling the steering and pedals, so if FSD does those things it must be driving.

      It's not. Driving is whatever has ultimate responsibility for the vehicle and its occupants. If a cop pulls you over while FSD is enabled, it's not Tesla who's paying the ticket. If FSD has an issue, you're the driver who has to respond.

      Think of FSD as a very nice cruise control. You're still driving, even if you aren't touching the wheel.

      • tencentshill a minute ago

        The bottom line is, no one else is even remotely close to that experience for the driver, liable or not. Probably with good reason, as every other car company actually listen to their lawyers.

      • pdpi 2 hours ago

        Sort of how programming isn't the same as writing code — it also involves a bunch of other thing like all the design and planning work.

      • zadikian an hour ago

        It's a common misconception because the thing is called "full self driving."

      • charcircuit an hour ago

        So if the law says that a human in the car has to be responsible then it is impossible for a self driving car to exist. I do not think tying the definition to legal liability is right.

        I don't see why self driving couldn't just be steering and pedals. It would be pretty limiting but it would be able to drive itself in a circle at least.

        • Retric an hour ago

          No. The law allows passengers in self driving Taxi not to be responsible. Including Taxi operated by Tesla.

          Here Tesla makes it clear to people who turn on “Full self driving” the driver must maintain supervision and thus responsibility. As such it’s Tesla’s choice that they aren’t selling self driving cars.

          It wouldn’t be such a big deal if some random engineer said they’d eventually do X, but when it’s the CEO repeatedly saying the same across many public appearances that’s as binding as a Super Bowl advertisement.

    • rootusrootus 32 minutes ago

      It's fairly simple. Tesla says I have to supervise, and they are not liable for anything the car does wrong. It is not full self-driving any more than a 25 40 year old car with cruise control is.

    • loloquwowndueo 3 hours ago

      By that logic it’s ok if the car slams itself against a concrete wall - just because it failed to stop in time doesn’t mean it wasn’t driving itself.

      Self driving cars are supposed to obey the same rules as human drivers.

      • roenxi 2 hours ago

        Well ... yes. By that logic it is the case. It applies to humans too - if a human slams their car into a concrete wall then the human was still driving the car. They did a bad job of it, but they were in fact driving.

        A car being driven autonomously doesn't imply much about the quality of that driving. They're still going to make bad decisions and have accidents, just like humans do (a friend of mine died slamming their car into a tree). There is probably some minimum where we'd say that it isn't really driving because it can't do anything right, but modern self driving systems are past that.

      • RajT88 3 hours ago

        Tesla FSD is vulnerable to RoadRunner and Wile E. Coyote style tricks.

        • iknowstuff 10 minutes ago

          it's not. that vid was using autopilot, not fsd, and subsequent videos using actual new FSD were fine

        • qingcharles 3 hours ago

          Fortunately the ACME products are flawed and subject to their own litigation, see e.g. Coyote vs. ACME (2026).

      • charcircuit an hour ago

        Both statements can be true. Human vs self driving cars is a different classification between good and bad driving. Humans can slam into a wall too.

    • throw7 3 hours ago

      When full liability is put on the manufacturer, then we can talk about "cars driving themselves".

    • zadikian an hour ago

      AI never had goalposts, it means programming meant to look like human behavior. Like AI opponents in old video games.

    • dawnerd 3 hours ago

      Those YouTubers are all there to make Tesla look good. It’s a grift. The ones that are honest and show the bad side get kicked out of the Tesla club fast and dogpiled on.

      Also a school zone is one of the most basic things the car should be able to handle. If it can’t do that, it’s not ready for public use.

      • roenxi 2 hours ago

        >Also a school zone is one of the most basic things the car should be able to handle. If it can’t do that, it’s not ready for public use.

        Humans don't always follow the law driving through school zones. And when humans speed through a school zone, the human is definitely driving the car. Are we ready to let humans drive on public roads?

        The argument has to go into the magnitude of the problem to get anywhere meaningful.

    • UltraSane 3 hours ago

      Tesla FSD won't be level 5 until Tesla has liability for any crashes it causes the way Waymo does.

    • kalleboo 3 hours ago

      Elon Musks claims included (exact quotes, these posts are still on X):

      Jan 10, 2016: In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY

      Jul 16, 2019: If we make all cars with FSD package self-driving, as planned, any such Tesla should be worth $100k to $200k, as utility increases from ~12 hours/week to ~60 hours/week

      These aren't moving goalposts by antis, this are the expectations set by Elon Musk himself when advertising his products.

    • frakkingcylons 3 hours ago

      See, that's really the best argument for this. It can drive itself the same way I can fly an Airbus A321. You can't sue me because I didn't land the plane "intact".

  • romaaeterna an hour ago

    Why does HN publish this electrek spam?