A shareholder lawsuit which accused Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk of overstating the effectiveness and safety of the company’s so-called Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) semi-autonomous driving systems in order to boost stock price has been dismissed by a US court. Reuters reports the class action, filed in San Francisco, claimed Tesla defrauded shareholders across four years through false and misleading statements which concealed how its driver assistance technology “created a serious risk of accident and injury”. The lawsuit also stated Tesla’s share price fell on multiple occasions following reports of injuries and deaths related to the systems, including after the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began investigating Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD technologies.
Tesla’s share price reportedly fell by 5.7 per cent in February this year, after the NHTSA forced a recall of more than 362,000 vehicles equipped with beta versions of FSD due to safety concerns. 100s of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now.
Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now . The news agency reports judge Araceli Martinz-Olguin said shareholders have failed to show how Tesla and Mr Musk should be liable for falsely promising they were close to delivering safe driving software which was “plagued with issues” and encouraged inattentiveness, as the lawsuit claimed.
While Autopilot provides common semi-autonomous driver aids such as.