Tesla Model 3 owner seeks class action lawsuit over 'phantom braking'

A Tesla Model 3 owner who filed a lawsuit against the automaker on Friday alleging unintended braking is seeking class-action status.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said a defect in Tesla's Autopilot system can cause the vehicle to suddenly brake and could reduce its market value.

The plaintiff's law firm, Bursor & Fisher in Walnut Creek, Calif., said in the complaint that Tesla knowingly sold defective vehicles to customers. The company is seeking $5 million in damages on behalf of plaintiff Jose Alvarez Toledo of San Francisco and other Tesla owners to join a proposed class action lawsuit.

According to the complaint, Alvarez Toledo has experienced “the sudden and unintended brake failure” on multiple occasions since delivering a new Tesla Model 3 in January 2021. Twice the vehicle “suddenly engaged the brakes and reduced its speed by about half".

Issue that "suddenly and unexpectedly (causes vehicle to stop) in the middle of the road" should be covered by Tesla's base warranty, which handles maintenance and repairs for four years or 50 000 miles, according to the complaint. .

The lawsuit alleges Tesla knew of the defect through, "among other things, pre-production testing, consumer complaints, warranty data, dealer repair orders, and NHTSA investigations," but did not recall the vehicles or provide Alvarez Toledo with a proper repair or replacement.

“These costs are significant and no reasonable consumer would expect to incur such costs,” the complaint states.

All Tesla vehicles are equipped with the automaker's advanced Autopilot driver assistance system, which can steer, accelerate, and brake automatically under driver supervision.

This is one of several lawsuits filed against Tesla this summer alleging problems with the Autopilot system. Between May 2021 and February 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) received 354 complaints alleging unexpected brake activation in 2021 and 2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, according to the complaint.

NHTSA asked Tesla in August for information about its safety technology as part of an ongoing investigation into 830,000 Tesla vehicles equipped with Autopilot.

Meanwhile, Tesla is racing to bring self-driving technology to market. CEO Elon Musk said at the Offshore Northern Shore 2022 conference in Norway on Monday that he hopes Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, the $15,000 successor to Autopilot, will be widely released in the United States. United by the end of the year. p>

"The problem is that Tesla is rushing to market these features when the technology is not yet ready and not yet secure," the complaint states.

Neither Tesla nor the plaintiff's attorneys immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday morning.