{"id":353796,"date":"2025-12-17T09:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/353796\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T09:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T09:30:12","slug":"tesla-engaged-in-deceptive-marketing-for-autopilot-and-full-self-driving-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/353796\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing for Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, judge rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

An administrative law judge has ruled<\/a> that Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing that gave customers a false impression of the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving driver assistance software, a pivotal development in a years-long case initiated by California\u2019s Department of Motor Vehicles.<\/p>\n

The judge agreed with the state DMV\u2019s request<\/a> to suspend Tesla sales for 30 days as a penalty for its actions, but the DMV stayed the order and is giving Tesla 60 days to modify or remove any deceptive language before implementing the suspension, according<\/a> to multiple<\/a> outlets. The judge also recommended suspending Tesla\u2019s manufacturing license for 30 days, but the DMV stayed that order, too, according to Bloomberg News<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe DMV\u2019s decision today confirms that the department will hold every vehicle manufacturer to the highest safety standards to keep California\u2019s drivers, passengers and pedestrians protected,\u201d DMV director Steve Gordon said in a statement. \u201cTesla can take simple steps to pause this decision and permanently resolve this issue \u2014 steps autonomous vehicle companies and other automakers have been able to achieve in California\u2019s nation-leading and supportive innovation marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tesla said in a post<\/a> on X that: \u201cSales in California will continue uninterrupted.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a \u2018consumer protection\u2019 order about the use of the term \u2018Autopilot\u2019 in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there\u2019s a problem,\u201d the company wrote.<\/p>\n

After the 60-day window, Tesla can appeal the decision and should Tesla comply, the suspensions will be dropped. But it\u2019s not immediately clear what steps the DMV wants Tesla to take, beyond telling the company to \u201ctake action regarding its use of the term \u2018autopilot.\u2019\u201d The DMV did not immediately respond to a request for clarification, or to a request regarding Tesla\u2019s apparent plan to ignore the decision.<\/p>\n

Tesla has faced multiple investigations from the California Attorney General<\/a>, the Department of Justice<\/a>, and the Securities and Exchange Commission over similar allegations that its marketing around partial autonomy systems was misleading. The company has also faced (and now settled) a number of personal civil lawsuits over crashes involving its Autopilot technology.<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The case brought by the CA DMV has been winding through the state\u2019s Office of Administrative Hearings for years. The agency essentially accused Tesla of making customers believe that its advanced driver assistance systems were capable of high levels of autonomy. This led to overconfidence in the systems, the DMV alleged, which has contributed to dozens of crashes and multiple deaths. Tesla refuted these claims by saying its marketing was protected speech. <\/p>\n

A shutdown of sales in California, even temporary, could have a major impact on Tesla\u2019s business as it remains the company\u2019s largest market in the United States. A manufacturing suspension could also hurt Tesla\u2019s business. While the company has constructed a massive factory in Austin, Texas (and moved its official headquarters to the same location), it still relies on its Fremont, California factory to make hundreds of thousands of vehicles, including all North American-bound Model 3 sedans.<\/p>\n

The judge\u2019s decision comes at a moment when Tesla is advancing its Robotaxi service test in Austin. Over the weekend, the company removed the safety monitors<\/a> from its small fleet in the city. It had been offering rides to customers in the city for the last six months, but with a safety monitor either in the driver\u2019s or passenger\u2019s seat. Those vehicles are running a different version of Tesla\u2019s driving software than what the automaker\u2019s customers have in their cars, CEO Elon Musk has said.<\/p>\n

This story has been updated to include information from the DMV\u2019s press release and Tesla\u2019s response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An administrative law judge has ruled that Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing that gave customers a false impression…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1018,173194,28,11,26971,1019,57289],"class_list":{"0":"post-353796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-autonomous-vehicles","9":"tag-avs","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-full-self-driving","13":"tag-tesla","14":"tag-tesla-autopilot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}