Tesla under investigation in California over Autopilot safety issues and false advertising

Tesla under investigation in California over Autopilot safety issues and false advertising

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla is facing a new investigation with the California attorney general’s office looking into safety issues with the company’s Autopilot feature as well as its marketing practices, CNBC reported on Wednesday.

The outlet was tipped off to the investigation by Tesla owner Greg Wester, who California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office called to ask about his August 2022 Federal Trade Commission complaint about his Tesla’s “phantom braking” problem and what he believed to be misleading claims around the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s claims about his cars’ fully driverless capabilities date back to 2016 when he said all new Tesla EVs would have the necessary hardware for it. In fact, the company has dragged its feet on it for so long that it’s now giving drivers a “one-time” transfer of their purchased upgrade to their next EV from the company.

Tesla is having a moment, and I’m not talking about it having finally produced a Cybertruck in its Texas plant or its charging standard effectively winning the EV charging standard war in the US. It’s also in a heap of legal and regulatory battles over safety issues with its cars.

The company is being sued in California by owners complaining about “phantom braking” — alleging Tesla’s cars will abruptly brake while in Autopilot mode for seemingly no reason at all. In China, thousands of the company’s cars are being recalled for the same reason. And in the US, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has begun its own investigation of the car’s strange alleged braking behaviors.

That’s not all. The Department of Justice is looking into Tesla’s potential criminal liability for at least some of the crashes, both fatal and not, related to its Autopilot issue — an issue that could be more widespread than was understood previously.

And the NHTSA is also investigating over a dozen incidents in which Teslas with Autopilot have crashed into stationary emergency vehicles. The agency has also forced the company to issue a recall of over 360,000 Teslas with FSD beta installed (though the recall is really just a compulsory software update).

Attorney General Bonta’s office declined to confirm or deny the investigation.