Wiki FSD’s Earliest Adopters Still Waiting

[DanDi58]

This is always such an amateur take on class actions.

The action in 2018 was about a delay on EAP features, not a complete failure to deliver. The lawsuit was never about a full refund on EAP, or FSD. Which is why payments were tied to when you bought your car, and were not huge.

There were 33,000 class members. Tesla was required to pay $5.4M in damages. So the reason you didn't get much money is because the court itself didn't find massive damages here.

The court assigned $1M of that to the lawyers. That's less than 20%. More importantly, it's $30 per class member. When was the last time you could hire a lawyer for $30? It should be noted that normal lawyer contingency fees are 20%-50%, so this was very cheap.

Would you seriously prefer that nobody had sued Tesla? Would you have sued Tesla yourself? Do you think you could have gotten a full refund for EAP, while paying less than a few thousand in lawyer's fees, which would have been required to net $280 or more?

People always focus on how much the lawyers make, but it's actually the courts that set these fees, and they pay reasonable rates for the hours of work put in. And of course, the lawyers are doing this at risk- if they lose, they don't get paid at all. If you ever wonder why there aren't more class actions against Tesla, one might look at this and see that the lawyers didn't make bank, and maybe future lawyers don't really see it as worth it to go up against Tesla.

The reality is that for damages related to most consumer transactions like from some $10 item to even $6,000 EAP, it's really hard for an individual consumer to sue over those and not have any recovery of damages be completely overwhelmed by lawyer fees. Without class actions, there would be zero way to hold major companies to any kind of appropriate behavior. If every single person had to sue individually, they could just run around stealing $3,000 from every customer and make even more bank than the lawyers.

Remember, Tesla here is the one that has done wrong, not the lawyers. Be annoyed that lawyers had to sue Tesla because Tesla misbehaved, not annoyed at lawyers or courts for the minimum payments you got. Be happy that at least someone with more initiative than yourself is doing their best to hold Tesla to account for their promises.

Sounds like you're a lawyer....

 

[gearchruncher]

Sounds like you're a lawyer....

And sounds like you're someone that is OK with big companies doing whatever they want.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm one of the few people that has bothered to sue Tesla over FSD on my own, and won.
The rest of you can sit around on the internet complaining about how much lawyers make and how you'd rather a lawyer get nothing than you get $300.

FYI, the whole "class actions are bad, lawyers get bank" is a message large corporations want you to believe, and something they actively promote. Why do you think Tesla forces a no-class-action clause on you when you buy a car?

My favorite was when Uber had a no class action clause for their drivers, so they got sued literally thousands of times individually. They complained to the court that this was inefficient and this should be a class. The court appropriately told them to pound sand, they brought this on themseleves:

Uber Loses Appeal Challenging $91 Million in Mass Arbitration Fees | Insights | Holland & Knight

The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court issued the latest significant ruling in the mass arbitration space, a litigation trend that is gaining notoriety.

www.hklaw.com

This is really the right action with Tesla- mass arbitration. Tesla pays when you go to arbitration. What we need is a hundred k people filing arbitration over FSD, which would cost Tesla a hundreds of million just in the fees alone, and uses Tesla's own forced arbitration against itself.

 

[Knightshade]

What we need is a hundred k people filing arbitration over FSD, which would cost Tesla a hundreds of million just in the fees alone, and uses Tesla's own forced arbitration against itself.

Of course there aren't 100k people with cause to file.... As discussed previously assuming a ~10% take rate you're talking maybe 40-50k total that were ever promised more than L2, at least some of which no longer have an FSD car years later (trade ins where it's removed, wrecks, etc). Still even half the eligible ones doing it would be pretty messy for em.

 

[JB47394]

And sounds like you're someone that is OK with big companies doing whatever they want.

He was reacting to someone justifying lawyer fees from class action lawsuits.

 

[gearchruncher]

He was reacting to someone justifying lawyer fees from class action lawsuits.

Yeah, $30 per person for a lawyer to represent you against Tesla is super unreasonable. Time to go elect new judges! (they set the lawyer fees in class actions)

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

Huh? HW4 vehicles have one less camera than HW3 vehicles.

HW3 has ports to hookup 8 cameras. HW4 has 10 ports plus a spare. You MAY have a car w HW4 in it but the new model 3 and Y will have the wiring to accomodate the 10 cameras watch this

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

Elon already said HW3->HW4 would be cost prohibitive

New model 3 and Y will have 48V systems. Less wiring

 

[MP3Mike]

HW4 has 10 ports plus a spare.

Not on the Model Y. It has a different HW4 that doesn't have the extra unused video inputs.

 

[daniel]

... I know we've covered this before- with you specifically, but they promised at least L4. As I said before, and just above in this post, L5 would be a tougher (though not impossible) haul to convince a jury of.

But if Tesla delivered you a reasonably wide ODD L4 system I suspect you'd lose any lawsuit you tried over "only" getting that.

Of course they don't have any such a thing to deliver to you.

Maybe I misunderstand the distinction between L4 and L5, but the promise was that the car could drive itself empty to pick up kids from school or soccer practice, and that it could work as a robotaxi with nobody in it, and that it could drive all the way across the country with nobody in it. I take that to mean L5, based on the "nobody in it," and covering the entire country, with the possible exception of rural non-highway roads. Assuming they don't make the promise to anybody who lives in rural America.

... What Tesla SHOULD do is offer FSD transfer to any new car bought with removal from a previously owned car until all of the liability is behind them. ...

What Tesla should do is admit that they were playing fast and loose with the truth when they promised a robotaxi-capable car and claimed that the cars had all the necessary hardware. They should admit that they had no way of knowing that the cars had the needed hardware, or that they could ever deliver on the promise.

Then they should offer to buy back your car at full original retail if you bought the car because you believed it would be truly fully autonomous; and if you paid for FSD with the expectation that it would become fully autonomous but want to keep the car, they should refund you the amount you paid for FSD plus interest and let you keep the scaled-down features now being called "FSD." And Elon should admit that he's full of poo and that everything he's claimed about the self-driving capability of his cars was bullfeathers from the start because he had surgery to separate his mouth from his brain.

 

[JB47394]

Yeah, $30 per person for a lawyer to represent you against Tesla is super unreasonable. Time to go elect new judges! (they set the lawyer fees in class actions)

I'll try again. He was making a mild joke. The joke could be used when anyone gets vehemently defensive about something. Ever see someone go off in defense of the New York Jets? Found the New York Jets fan. Ever see someone go off on charcoal grills vs gas grills? Found the BBQ guy.

 

[Knightshade]

Maybe I misunderstand the distinction between L4 and L5

Seems like it.

, but the promise was that the car could drive itself empty to pick up kids from school or soccer practice, and that it could work as a robotaxi with nobody in it,and that it could drive all the way across the country with nobody in it.

No, it was not.

Literally none of those things were promised to buyers when purchasing FSD.

I've shown you the actual words, from the actual purchase screen, many times- and you keep making up stuff that simply ain't there.


Here it is yet again.

That is clearly a system that is at least L4 (due to the "no action required" element).

It MIGHT be 4 or it MIGHT be 5, there's nothing I expect you couldn't get a jury to look either way at though.

I take that to mean L5, based on the "nobody in it," and covering the entire country

Again- they never promised "nobody in it"

Quite the opposite- they state "person in the drivers seat" having to do nothing other than get in and provide a destination (and if they don't it'll pick one)

Regardless of which, both L4 and L5 can operate without a human ever needed- so that doesn't tell you which a system is either way.

Neither did they promise to "cover the entire country" instead they said it'd be capable of long and short trips under ALMOST all conditions.

Which, again, could easily be L4-- or COULD be L5.

It's nowhere near clear enough that I'd think you had a great shot winning a lawsuit if they "only" delivered you L4 unless the ODD was quite narrow.

Then they should offer to buy back your car at full original retail if you bought the car because you believed it would be truly fully autonomous;

Might wanna google the word depreciation.

Nobody gives you a full refund for a years-used item because it didn't do one of the things it was promised to but did do all the others.

and if you paid for FSD with the expectation that it would become fully autonomous but want to keep the car, they should refund you the amount you paid for FSD plus interest and let you keep the scaled-down features now being called "FSD."

It'd almost certainly be one or the other- not both.

And for the folks we're talking about most only paid 2-3k for FSD anyway (most of what they paid was for EAP- which was fully delivered years ago)

 

[daniel]

At the time I bought my car, Musk was saying that if people paid for FSD it would (eventually) be capable of operating as a robotaxi, and he was even promising to provide an app (analogous to Uber) for the purpose. But being autonomous, you could simply set the car to respond to ride requests and fulfill them.

 

[Yelobird]

At the time I bought my car, Musk was saying that if people paid for FSD it would (eventually) be capable of operating as a robotaxi, and he was even promising to provide an app (analogous to Uber) for the purpose. But being autonomous, you could simply set the car to respond to ride requests and fulfill them.

Was this “promise” written in your order agreement or on a non Tesla chat forum. If he said it will snow tomorrow would you run out and buy a shovel?

 

[gearchruncher]

Was this “promise” written in your order agreement or on a non Tesla chat forum.

This argument always falls down when you actually look at a Tesla "order agreement" and realize they could deliver you a brick since it doesn't describe anything.

Statements made by official officers of a company in a public forum without disclosures do carry weight.

 

[Knightshade]

At the time I bought my car, Musk was saying that if people paid for FSD it would (eventually) be capable of operating as a robotaxi, and he was even promising to provide an app (analogous to Uber) for the purpose. But being autonomous, you could simply set the car to respond to ride requests and fulfill them.

As has been explained to you.... honestly a lot at this point... CEO making aspirational forward looking statements out loud in general is not a legally binding contract.

The description of what you bought is.

I posted a screen shot of what that was.

That's what you bought, and that, and only that, is what you are owed for buying it.

 

[KArnold]

Was this “promise” written in your order agreement or on a non Tesla chat forum. If he said it will snow tomorrow would you run out and buy a shovel?

Of course not in the sales order. We now know the man has no concept of truth and little on ethics.

 

[daniel]

Law and ethics are very different things.

... If [Musk] said it will snow tomorrow would you run out and buy a shovel?

Not a suitable analogy, since a reasonable person knows that weather forecasting is a very inexact science. A better analogy would be if you live in Minnesota and a man offers to sell you a snow shovel, and you buy it but it turns out that the blade fragments when exposed to temperatures below 30 F. When you bought a shovel called a "snow shovel" you have a reasonable expectation that it can shovel snow. If the man gave you a receipt with small print that said "Not for shoveling snow," you would have no legal recourse. But you'd be within your rights to call the seller a scoundrel.

 

[Knightshade]

Law and ethics are very different things.

Guess which one matters in court.

 

[Yelobird]

Law and ethics are very different things.



Not a suitable analogy, since a reasonable person knows that weather forecasting is a very inexact science. A better analogy would be if you live in Minnesota and a man offers to sell you a snow shovel, and you buy it but it turns out that the blade fragments when exposed to temperatures below 30 F. When you bought a shovel called a "snow shovel" you have a reasonable expectation that it can shovel snow. If the man gave you a receipt with small print that said "Not for shoveling snow," you would have no legal recourse. But you'd be within your rights to call the seller a scoundrel.

Guess I better return my grandsons Radio Flyer wagon then. My hopes are now crushed.

 

[Knightshade]

Guess I better return my grandsons Radio Flyer wagon then. My hopes are now crushed.

Also no matter how many times I rub a diaper genie it never grants my wish!