Kann man das Geld zurückerhalten, wenn man FSD nicht nutzen kann? Tesla hat den Prozess verloren, und der Fahrzeugbesitzer hat eine Entschädigung von über 70.000 Yuan erhalten.
The verdict is out: Tesla has to pay up.
The root cause is that Tesla has been hyping up its Full Self - Driving (FSD) feature for nearly a decade without delivering on the promise. An old Tesla owner who had bought three Tesla cars couldn't bear it anymore and filed a lawsuit against Tesla in an arbitration tribunal.
The sole demand is a refund for the FSD package.
The result is that Tesla lost. The arbitrator immediately announced:
There is sufficient evidence to show that the feature is inoperable, unmanageable, or unavailable.
This is not a good sign.
Old Tesla owner wins lawsuit against Tesla
The owner, from Washington, USA, is named Marc Dobin. He was originally a loyal Tesla fan. The 2021 Model Y was the third Tesla car he and his wife owned.
Since his wife unfortunately suffered from a degenerative disease that limited her mobility, Dobin was very interested in the FSD package.
He believed that the FSD vision touted by Elon Musk could greatly assist his wife in getting around, bringing them a lot of hope. For this reason, Dobin paid an extra $10,000 (approximately 71,900 yuan) for the FSD.
But after purchasing it, Dobin was extremely disappointed.
Because Tesla restricted access to the FSD Beta version through its "Safety Score" system, Dobin couldn't use the FSD feature at all, and this was not mentioned in the contract.
The "Safety Score" is a system launched by Tesla in 2021. It evaluates the quality of a driver's habits based on five indicators: forward collision warning, emergency braking, sharp turns, unsafe following distance, and forced disengagement of Autopilot, calculated per 1000 miles.
The system calculates the total safety score by combining the driver's daily safety scores (up to 30 days) and displays it on the main "Safety Score" interface of the Tesla app.
Drivers need to have good driving behavior for 7 consecutive days and achieve a safety score of 100 to gain access.
Moreover, even if the safety score meets the standard, the feature still requires full - time supervision by the driver at that time, which is inconsistent with Tesla's promotional claims.
Of course, Dobin is not an isolated case. The price of Tesla's FSD package ranges from $8,000 to $15,000 (equivalent to approximately 57,300 to 107,500 yuan), and there are at least hundreds of thousands of such owners.
However, seeking rights protection has been a tortuous process for them. Tesla usually doesn't easily allow owners to get a refund or file a lawsuit. Buyers have to spend a great deal of time and effort and go for arbitration with the sales contract.
However, Dobin is a tough nut to crack. He is a lawyer with years of arbitration experience. After a year - long stalemate between the two parties, they finally ended up in arbitration.
At the hearing, Tesla sent two lawyers and summoned an on - site technical expert as a witness.
The technician admitted that he didn't check the vehicle's factory - installed equipment, didn't look at its driving logs, didn't know the detailed information of the FSD system installed on the vehicle (if any), didn't talk to the sales representative, and didn't review the integration clauses of the contract...
In short, he took the blame for Tesla.
Facing more questions from Dobin, a professional lawyer, such as Tesla's lack of disclosure about the safety score and the system's failure to fulfill its promises to customers, the technician was speechless.
One of Tesla's two lawyers remained silent, while the other tried to downplay the impact of the witness's testimony.
Obviously, Tesla didn't gain the upper hand. The final result was that the arbitrator sided with Dobin and ruled:
There is sufficient evidence to show that the feature is inoperable, unmanageable, or unavailable.
Tesla has to repay Dobin $10,000 plus 6% tax, which amounts to approximately 76,000 yuan.
And because Tesla forced arbitration through the contract, it also has to pay nearly $8,000 in arbitration fees, totaling approximately 133,000 yuan in RMB.
In many people's eyes, Tesla's approach is quite strange. Choosing arbitration, which also incurs high costs, to avoid repaying $10,000 is not a wise move.
Foreign media Electrek believes that a better approach would be to compensate users who request FSD until the promise of full self - driving is truly fulfilled, as the goal is almost in sight.
But spending so much money and time on arbitration now is not a good sign.
In Electrek's view, this may indicate some problems. For example, Tesla may not be ready for the real FSD at all.
The promise of FSD has been around for a decade, but it's still a "futures product".
Elon Musk admits: HW3 can't achieve the decade - long "futures" FSD
The troubles Tesla is facing now date back to a decade ago.
In 2016, Tesla announced that all vehicles produced thereafter would achieve full self - driving through software updates in the future.
This was Elon Musk's confidence in Tesla, but little did he know that it was laying the groundwork for endless "pay - backs".
At that time, Tesla cars were equipped with the HW2.5 version of the hardware kit, which included cameras, radar, and an autonomous driving computing system.
However, Musk also said that the on - board computing power of the HW2.5 system was insufficient and it wouldn't be the final version. Upgrading the computer would be necessary to achieve full self - driving later.
He emphasized that Tesla would provide the update service for free.
So in March 2019, Tesla launched a new generation of hardware, HW3, and retrofitted early HW2.5 models.
Musk promised at that time that HW3 would definitely be able to achieve the FSD function. However, by early 2023, when HW4 was already being installed in cars, this promise remained unfulfilled.
But during this hardware upgrade, Musk didn't mention retrofitting the old models. He said that it was because HW4 was equipped with a more powerful computer and better cameras, and retrofitting HW3 vehicles with HW4 was "economically unfeasible".
Source: Twitter
However, he still insisted that HW3 could also achieve FSD. Tesla would first optimize the FSD for HW3, and the installation of HW4 would be postponed by at least six months.
But in fact, in July 2024, Tesla updated to FSD 12.5 and first deployed it on vehicles equipped with HW4.
Musk's explanation was that HW3 had weaker performance and needed more time for optimization.
In the outside world's view, this is a sign of unease and may imply that HW3 has limitations in achieving FSD.
Some media found through crowdsourced data (information collected by a large group of people via the Internet) that Tesla vehicles need to be taken over by the driver every 122 miles (approximately 196.3 kilometers) on average.
Source: Electrek
Many experts believe that Tesla needs to increase this average mileage by about 1000 times to fulfill its promise of full self - driving.
After half a year, perhaps realizing that hope was slim, Musk finally relented and for the first time admitted that HW3 can't support FSD.
So what about HW3 owners? They can only wait.
Musk issued a statement at the end of January this year, saying that Tesla would replace the computers of HW3 models for free, but only for vehicles that purchased the highest - priced $15,000 package.
However, nearly half a year has passed since the statement was issued, and there has been no movement.
There is no retrofit plan, let alone talk of a refund.
There is a major problem. As Musk mentioned before, HW3 models don't have the same camera connectors and overall format as HW4, so it's difficult to install HW4 computers.
Source: Twitter, left is HW4.0, right is HW3.0
But if Tesla repays the FSD fees, it may face billions of dollars in settlement fees and take several years to resolve.
Some Tesla owners bought the FSD package nine years ago and still haven't seen any results.
Electrek joked: It's becoming absurd to believe that Tesla will achieve autonomous driving on nearly ten - year - old vehicles.
Tesla's hope seems to lie in HW3 owners replacing their cars.
But the question is, if someone paid for the FSD subscription when buying an HW3 car and it's still not available even when the car is sold, shouldn't they get a refund?
At least for now, a successful case has emerged in the United States.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Intelligent Vehicle Reference" (ID: AI4Auto), author: Jessica. Republished by 36Kr with permission.