A California judge ruled late Tuesday afternoon that Tesla engaged in “deceptive marketing” in reference to its Full Self-Driving system, and that Tesla’s license to sell and produce cars in the state should be revoked for 30 days.
However, the California DMV has said it will give Tesla 60 days to comply and fix its marketing before going through with the suspension.
The ruling is big news in a case that has been ongoing for years now.
Tesla has been selling level 2 driver assist software since 2016 which it calls “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), despite that this software did not (and still does not) make its cars capable of driving themselves.
This name has attracted much consternation over the years, becoming more absurd as each of Tesla’s predicted deadlines for the advent of full autonomy blow by.
Tesla also provides software under the name “Autopilot,” another term that evokes some level of autonomy, though perhaps not as explicitly as the aforementioned FSD. Tesla long held the position that this word is meant to evoke airplane-like systems that still require a pilot, but can just do most of the work for them.
So eventually, in 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officially started an investigation into Tesla’s marketing claims, to determine whether the company had lied to consumers.
California found that the company was saying different things to the public than it was saying to the DMV.
The DMV then sent an official inquiry to Tesla in 2022, asking...
An appellate court has shut the door on reviewing the constitutionality of the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA), although two other appellate courts are reviewing this issue, with ...