Judge blocks Tesla’s attempt to throw ‘phantom braking’ lawsuit out of court

Tesla is one of the top names in autonomous driving, but this has not prevented it from accumulating its share of dissatisfied customers. The American automaker was named defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed in a district court in Chicago in 2023, and presiding district judge Georgia Alexakis has just ruled the trial should move ahead despite the automaker’s attempt to wriggle out of it.

Joshua Santiago et al. v. Tesla contends that Tesla failed to warn would-buyers about a “phantom braking” issue despite being aware of the shortcoming since 2015. The two plaintiffs complain that Tesla’s forward collision monitoring system triggers false alarms when there is no risk of a collision, allegedly causing the vehicle to slow down or stop completely.

Even though Tesla failed to get the whole lawsuit thrown out, Judge Alexakis agreed to trim the case. She dismissed claims that Tesla’s insurance business overcharged drivers for premiums based on the alleged braking defect. The allegation that the fake collision warnings inflated drivers’ premiums did not get the judge convinced.

Tesla is arguing it did not know about the alleged issue until one of the plaintiffs bought their Tesla Model 3 in 2021.

However, Alexakis acknowledged the lawsuit has established that would-be buyers should be able to make purchase decisions based on the information on Tesla’s website, making a case for Tesla’s alleged omission of safety information.

Tesla has big plans for its autonomous driving technology. It recently revealed the Cybercab and Robovan to great fanfare. The former is an upcoming two-seat taxi with no steering wheel or pedals, while the latter is a bigger self-driving public transport vehicle.

Tesla currently offers Autopilot with each new car with basic features like Cruise Control and Autosteer, but Full Self-Driving (Supervised) adds advanced features such as Navigate on Autopilot, Auto Lane Change, Autopark, Smart Summon, etc., by way of a subscription or a one-time purchase.