Court orders Tesla to upgrade customer's FSD computer free of charge

A judge in Washington ordered Tesla to upgrade a customer's self-driving computer free of charge as the company was found guilty of "false advertising". The customer in question has a Model 3 with a Hardware 2.5 computer and was unable to subscribe to Tesla's FSD unless he pays more than $1,000 for the upgrade to Hardware 3.0 and then subscribing to FSD for $199 a month.

It all started when the automaker promised that all vehicles produced after 2016 will have the needed hardware to support the company's Full Self-Driving, but that didn't happen as many vehicles released after 2016 still didn't have the compatible hardware. To tackle the issue, Tesla promised that all customers who purchased FSD, which now costs $15,000, will have their vehicles upgraded to Hardware 3.0 free of charge.

However, users who wanted to subscribe to Tesla's self-driving service, if we can call it that, were asked to shell out $1,000 for the upgrade. This one customer in Washington took it to court and since no Tesla representative appeared in court, the judge ruled out that the carmaker had to pay for the customer's upgrade on the grounds of "false advertising".

The story doesn't end there, though. The same owner has a second Tesla, which had a media unit called MCU1, and had to upgrade to MCU2 as Tesla was unable to fix an issue in the original one. Unfortunately, the MCU2 doesn't support AM radio and Tesla is unable to restore the functionality. The court found this to be a breach of warranty and ordered Tesla to pay $500 for the loss of AM radio in addition to the $1,657 for the FSD computer upgrade.

To Tesla's credit, the customer received all his due payments swiftly. This may sound like a small victory in court, but it could be used in future Tesla cases and more lawsuits may follow.

Via