Tesla is filing a lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) after the agency accused the company of creating “false advertising” regarding its “autopilot” feature.
The dispute began last year, when a judge from California’s Office of Administrative Hearings ruled that the company had engaged in misleading advertising by describing its fleet’s driver-assistance systems as “autopilot” modes.
The court argued that Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) modes did not meet the necessary criteria for autonomous driving under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Levels of Automation system.
It is worth noting that Tesla’s driving modes are classified by the NHTSA as Level 2 automation. The system’s decision-making capabilities would need to reach at least Level 3 to be described as “autonomous driving,” while Level 5 is considered fully autonomous.
For that reason, the ruling stated that by using the term “autopilot,” Tesla had misled consumers and overstated the capabilities of its driving system, which is considered semi-autonomous by the agency.
The decision took effect on January 15 of this year and included a 30-day suspension of business operations statewide unless the company stopped using the term in its promotional materials or modified its systems within 60 days.
Despite making sarcastic remarks about the ruling on social media, Tesla complied. Still in January, the company discontinued “Basic Autopilot” in the United States, reorganizing its vehicle offerings with a standard traffic-aware mode and an option to upgrade to FSD, now called “Full Self-Driving (Supervised).”
A few weeks later, the California DMV announced that Tesla had met its obligations and would not face a license suspension. However, the company is now challenging the decision more aggressively in an effort to regain the right to market its “autopilot” in the state.
In the February 13 filing, the automaker stated that the department labeled Tesla as engaging in “false advertising” and argued that the agency failed to effectively prove that customers were led to believe the vehicles could operate without human supervision.
In response, a DMV spokesperson said the department “is committed to protecting the traveling public and will defend the findings and decision of the Administrative Law Judge in court,” according to CNBC.
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