The California Department of Motor Vehicles has brought suit against electric car manufacturer Tesla, alleging false advertising and misleading customers with its “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” features. The DMV is angling for a 30-day suspension of the automaker’s license to sell EVs in California for at least 30 days while the courts hash out whether fines or retribution should come next. Tesla is, of course, looking to fight the allegations.
What does this mean for you?
If the CA DMV’s request for suspension is granted, it could throw Tesla into chaos. The suspension would come on the tail of a huge drop in sales during the first half of 2025 brought by a combination of the current administration’s lukewarm attitude towards EVs, unpredictable tariffs and Tesla Head Musk’s political meddlings. The brand is currently recovering from the dip and experiencing a surge of sales spurred on by customers rushing to save big before the imminent end of the Federal EV tax incentive, but a stop-sale today would kill that momentum in the state where over a third of the EVs in the US are sold, potentially until after the credit is gone in September.
For drivers in the state of California, this could mean looking to other manufacturers to get their EV fix. Currently models in the portfolios of Hyundai, Kia, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Acura, Chrysler and Jeep qualify as alternatives for the EV tax break. Outside of California, a 30-day suspension could mean a surge of inventory at Tesla dealerships should the automaker rush to move stock to unaffected markets.
Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how things shake out in court this week to know for sure.
The question of “Full Self-Driving”
According to the CA DMV, Tesla (and CEO Elon Musk) is misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles’ advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in the ways the features are named — “Full Self-Driving” and “Autopilot” — described and marketed to potential buyers and current owners. The DMV first initiated proceedings against Tesla in July 2022, later revising their claims in November 2023. (In 2021, the National Transportation Safety Board called Tesla “irresponsible” for similar reasons.) The CA DMV has called for a suspension of Tesla’s licenses to sell vehicles in California for at least 30 days, along with securing a court order for the electric vehicle maker to pay a yet determined amount in restitution.
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The agency cites verbiage from Tesla making claims that its vehicles are able to, for example, “conduct short and long-distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat” and “automatically search for a spot and park itself” as creating unrealistic expectations for the technology’s current legal and technological capabilities.
Tesla’s rebuttal includes a claim that the DMV has been aware of its use of the “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” branding since the features’ debuts in 2014 and 2016, respectively, long before the DMV’s first allegations. According to Tesla, this is paramount to “implicit approval” up to that point. Over the years, the automaker has also made small tweaks to its product descriptions. Today, the highest-tier ADAS feature is labeled on Tesla’s website as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” with footnotes stating that “currently enabled features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
However, the CA DMV doesn’t think that’s good enough and so the largest EV manufacturer in the US and the State with the largest EV market find themselves in court.
Musk has been promising full self-driving cars “within three to six months” for well over 10 years now.
CNET’s stance on “autonomous driving”
It’s been CNET’s policy since the features’ inception to clarify when reporting on Tesla that neither Autopilot nor Full Self-Driving are true full self-driving autonomous car systems, rather they are advanced driver assistance systems that require (both practically and legally) the driver to remain engaged and attentive on the road. As CNET’s automotive expert, I continue this practice — which is in keeping with the currently accepted understanding and definition of levels of driver assistance technology as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) — and aim ensure that our readers have an accurate understanding of what car tech can and can’t do in order to be best informed when making buying decisions and staying safe on the road.
