Since 2016, Tesla has been marketing an expensive option called Full Self-Driving. A reasonable person might infer from the name that the software package enables a car to drive itself, fully.
It does not. No car available for consumers to buy is capable of full self-driving. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has rules on its books that ban the advertisement of cars as “self-driving” when they are not. But it has never enforced those rules.
So, impatient with the DMV, the state Legislature is stepping in, going over the DMV’s head and making its false advertising regulation a state law.
The bill, sponsored by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), was passed by the Senate on Tuesday night and now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature. Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
False advertising of self-driving technology is a serious safety issue, Gonzalez said. At least several deaths have been linked to Tesla’s Autopilot, the cheaper, more basic version of Full Self-Driving.
In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez said she and fellow legislators are puzzled at the DMV’s slow response to Tesla’s advertising claims.
“Are we just going to wait for another person to be killed in California?” she said.
The DMV had no comment on the bill, and Steve Gordon, who runs the department, has declined to speak with The Times or any other member of the media on the subject since he took office in 2019.
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