Court orders Tesla to refund the price of a Model X over random Autopilot braking

A court-ordered technical expertise found Tesla's Autopilot mode unable to recognize objects such as a narrowing of a construction yard, in addition to random braking incidents that could lead to rear-end collisions in big city environments. The Munich court has ordered Tesla to refund most of the plaintiff's Model X purchase price as a result, since she wants to return the electric SUV on said random Autopilot braking grounds. The owner paid 112,000 Euros for the car which with the current dollar parity amounts to about US$112,885.

Tesla's lawyers have argued that the Autopilot software is not meant for city driving and was used incorrectly, but the court's argument was that the owner shouldn't be bothered with fumbling for the on/off Autopilot switch as that would distract her from operating the electric vehicle in the city. "Once again it shows that Tesla does not keep the full-bodied promises when it comes to Autopilot," argued the plaintiff's lawyer Christoph Lindner in their turn.

For the owner's part, she doesn't want Tesla to refund her money, but simply give her a new Model X that hopefully won't have said semi-automated driving issues. Elon Musk is on record saying that getting self-driving right is key for the future value of Tesla, while at the same time advising that the Full Self-Driving Beta software isn't available in Europe yet on account of the extremely challenging driving and regulatory environment there that on top of that varies from one country to the other.

A number of Tesla crashes involving the Autopilot or self-driving mode are under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for various reasons that may lead to a massive recall. They range from Teslas driving into first respondent vehicles stopped at or on the road, to running into semi trucks. The latest fatal case involved an elderly couple that rear-ended a cargo truck by a rest stop near Gainesville and the family of the deceased have now hired famous Florida lawyers to get to the bottom of how and why their relatives died in the Model 3 crash.

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