Tesla Full Self-Driving faces its biggest challenge yet
On X (the former Twitter) these days, much of the conversation around Tesla Full-Self Driving (Supervised) is positive.
In between retweeting race-baiting posts from white supremacist accounts, CEO Elon Musk, who also owns the social media platform, sometimes reposts videos of customers happy with Tesla FSD, and much (though not all)of the conversation around FSD lauds the technology.
But on other social media platforms, a growing number of discontented Tesla owners express frustration over a range of issues. Some drivers have organized to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 3,000 people in California who are being left out of the company's latest FSD upgrade.
Tom LoSavio, the lead plaintiff in the case, purchased his Model S in 2017 for $100,000 and paid another $8,000 for lifetime access to FSD, according to The Wall Street Journal.
However, in the nine years since, he has grown disenchanted with Tesla, alleging that Musk and the company made repeated false claims about the tech's capabilities while charging thousands of dollars for pricey upgrades that didn't exist then, and still don't.
At the heart of the lawsuit is Musk and Tesla's repeated promise that most Teslas on the road today will one day be capable of autonomy. But the company's latest move with its Hardware 4 chip is leaving old-school Tesla owners out in the cold.
Tesla lawsuit rests on 2016 Elon Musk promise
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made plenty of promises that haven't come to fruition and has blown past countless deadlines that he set himself, but one promise from 2016 is at the heart of a class action lawsuit that now has 3,000 plaintiffs.
Tesla began including early versions of its self-driving tech in Teslas in 2014. Then, in 2015, Musk promised that Teslas would be able to drive themselves within two years.
In 2016, according to the lawsuit, Tesla said that all new cars built from then on would have the hardware required for full self-driving capabilities, with Musk claiming that by the end of 2017, a Tesla could drive itself from Los Angeles to New York City.
Last year, TheStreet covered two Tesla enthusiasts who documented their failed attempt to do just that. They didn't even make it out of California, although plenty of Tesla owners claim they have made the trip successfully.
Tesla has broken that promise multiple times since 2017, as the more sophisticated FSD technology required hardware updates to the company's computers and cameras, which it began offering in 2020 and 2021.
Some customers, like Tom LoSavio, who paid the $8,000 fee for lifetime access, were upgraded for free, while others who paid the monthly subscription price paid $1,000 for the 2020/2021 upgrade.
But then Tesla upgraded the hardware again in 2023, for a fourth time, and started selling new cars with its latest chip, meaning those who had been either upgraded for free or paid to upgrade just a couple of years prior were once again running on outdated equipment.
Similar lawsuits are popping up internationally.
Tesla FSD was approved for use in the Netherlands earlier this month, but only the version running on the latest hardware. So Tesla owners who purchased their vehicles before 2023 are out of luck.
"Why did I buy it? Because I believed they would make it happen," one Dutch Tesla owner who paid €68,000 in 2019 for a Model 3 Performance, and an additional €6,400 for the upgraded Full Self-Driving capability, told the Journal. "I just didn't think it would take them seven years, and still they wouldn't deliver."
He's organizing European Tesla owners into another lawsuit, and a similar class action suit is making its way through the Australian federal court, accusing the company of selling vehicles "incapable of supporting fully autonomous or close to autonomous driving," based on the hardware that was purchased years ago.
During Tesla's earnings call in January 2025, Musk told investors that the company would have to upgrade the computer for customers who bought the lifetime FSD package.
"That is the honest answer and that's going to be painful and difficult. But we'll get it done," Musk said at the time, according to the Journal. "Now, I'm kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package."
Leong/Washington Post via Getty Images
Elon Musk's promises keep investors intrigued
Following a second consecutive year of falling deliveries and its first year of declining revenue in 2025, Tesla has lost a bit of its luster.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank expect the bad times to stretch into 2026, but the firm remains bullish on the company, given its future ambitions.
"While the autos business at Tesla may underperform in 2026, we think more attention is directed towards the company's robotaxi expansion and efforts at humanoid development," Deutsche Bank analysts said in a recent note.
"To the extent that the macro regime doesn't change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business."
But the problem with Musk's promises, as the lawsuits point out, is that he rarely delivers on them.
"I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year," Musk said during the company's second-quarter earnings call in July 2025.
Tesla has about 500 active Tesla Robotaxis operating in pilot programs as of March 2026.
During the company's third-quarter call, Musk dangled Tesla's Optimus robot like shiny keys in front of investors, saying Tesla is "on the cusp of something really tremendous" with Optimus, and calling it the "biggest product of all time."
Musk even made a near-term promise. Tesla will be unveiling Optimus V3 "probably in Q1," he said. "It won't even seem like a robot. It'll seem like a person in a robot suit," Musk assured investors on the call.
Tesla's first-quarter earnings call is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22, after the closing bell. There is still no sign of Optimus V3, though the company shared news recently about two patents it filed in 2024 that supposedly give the robot "human-like dexterity."
Related: Tesla reality plays catch-up with Elon Musk's promises
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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 7:07 AM.