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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promising that his company’s EVs will be capable of fully driving themselves as soon as next year — every year for the last 12 or so years.
While the company has made some progress towards that lofty goal, it’s still little more than a glorified beta: Tesla owners still have to be ready to take over control of the steering wheel at all times, even when the erroneously-named “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software is engaged. (The company was recently forced to add the oxymoronic label of “Supervised” to the end of the feature’s name.)
Despite its glaring limitations, it’s also extremely expensive. In February, the company dropped its one-time purchase fee of an eye-watering $8,000, forcing owners to shell out $99 a month in perpetuity to unlock the software.
Considering Musk has yet to make good on his promise of truly self-driving Teslas over a decade later, it’s no wonder existing owners are starting to get fed up. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Tesla has repeatedly been hit with lawsuits over the mercurial CEO’s repeated — and outright false — claims.
The latest is retired attorney Tom LoSavio, who bought a Model S in 2017 and paid $8,000 on top of the over $100,000 luxury sedan to access what Musk claimed will eventually allow the car to drive itself.
In his class action suit, LoSavio accused Tesla of misleading consumers with its false claims about self-driving capabilities and is calling for owners to be refunded. It’s just one of numerous ongoing cases filed by angry owners looking to hold Musk to his infamously unreliable word.
While owners remain furious over being misled, investors have heavily bought in on the richest man in the world’s lofty promises. Even a controversial pivot from EV sales to robotics and a robotaxi service, which is only starting to take shape now, has Wall Street unperturbed. Despite a rapidly drying up core business, Tesla’s valuation remains well over a trillion dollars.
Meanwhile, even Musk himself admitted in January 2025 that the existing hardware installed in a huge number of Tesla vehicles — a package called Hardware 3, which was installed in vehicles produced from 2018 and 2023 — won’t be enough for fully autonomous driving.
Despite repeatedly hinting at free hardware upgrades, the company has yet to make good on its offer, leading to plenty of frustration among owners.
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