Shareholders rebuffed

Lawsuit over Autopilot: Tesla wins in court

The US electric car manufacturer Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have won a legal victory in relation to statements about autopilot technology. A federal court in San Francisco dismissed a shareholder lawsuit on Monday that accused them of misleading investors with exaggerated statements.

According to Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, the plaintiffs could not sufficiently prove that Tesla and Musk should be held liable for allegedly false promises.

Tesla statements not necessarily false
Some of the disputed statements were not necessarily false or could be understood as future expectations, according to the judge. The shareholders had argued that Tesla and Musk had falsely claimed to be on the verge of introducing a technology that was safer than human driving.

In fact, however, the technology was riddled with safety problems. Despite this success, Tesla continues to face investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as a lawsuit from the California Transportation Commission over its claims about autonomous driving.