Tesla is hit with a fresh class action lawsuit about the performance and claims of its self-driving and Autopilot systems as well as its “hardware 3 computer.”
The automaker is already facing dozens of lawsuits over its self-driving claims, crashes using advanced driver assist systems, alledged breaches of fiduciary duties from its CEO and board members, but now ou can add another one to the list.
In Australia, law firms Woodsford and JGA Saddler organized a class action in the Federal Court of Australia against Tesla Motors Australia Pty Ltd (Tesla Australia) and Tesla, Inc. (Tesla US) “alleging that Tesla Australia marketed and sold motor vehicles manufactured by Tesla US that were defective.”
The firms are currently recruiting people who purchased or leased a Tesla Model 3 or Y vehicle in Australia between May 2021 and February 2025.
They are going after Tesla over three specific issues. When it comes to the alleged defect, they are focusing on the phantom breaking issues when using Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot features:
Tesla vehicles have the propensity to autonomously engage automatic emergency braking abruptly in inappropriate circumstances, leading to a risk of collisions.
Another focus of the lawsuit is the discrepancy between the advertised and real range in its vehicles:
They lack the ability to achieve, or come close to achieving, the advertised maximum range or the range displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard when the battery level is greater than 50%.
Finally, the lawsuit is also going after Tesla for claiming that all its vehicles produced since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving:
Despite statements or representations to the contrary, the hardware on Tesla vehicles is incapable of supporting fully autonomous or close to autonomous driving.
This lawsuit comes after CEO Elon Musk finally recently admitted that its Hardware 3 self-driving computer (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
It’s the first known lawsuit about this issue since the CEO admitted the situation.
Tesla has already been having issues selling vehicles in Australia recently. Tesla’s sales were down 17% in the country last year and 33% in the first month of 2025.
Electrek’s Take
I would expect to see a lot of these lawsuits pop up against Tesla in the coming months, especially about HW3 now that Elon admitted that it won’t be capable of unsupervised self-driving as promised.
He did say that Tesla would offer retrofits for people who bought the FSD package, and that’s enough for his fans, but I doubt it will hold in court.
The way I see it, Tesla used the claim that “all cars produced since 2016 have the hardware capable of self-driving” to see these vehicles whether or not people bought the self-driving software package. Buyers who believed Tesla’s claim expected their cars to hold better value because of that, and it never happened.
Tesla could very well have to compensate every single person who bought vehicles from them.