Judge advances customers’ claims that Tesla reduced vehicle battery life on purpose

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — Tesla must face claims that it intentionally installed performance updates on many of its vehicles on the road, which intentionally damaged the batteries of vehicles in many states. 

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar allowed some class claims to survive in the lawsuit filed by car owners who say the Elon Musk-cofounded company released software intended to reduce the battery life of Model S and X Tesla vehicles.

The plaintiffs adequately pleaded that Tesla knowingly updated the vehicles’ transmissions with a series of software changes which immediately damaged many cars' batteries without the owners’ permission, Tigar said in a 16-page order Tuesday.

However, the judge dismissed the plaintiffs' unfair competition claims, as well as a request to force Tesla to stop releasing performance updates while the litigation is underway. 

“Just as past harms to the batteries are compensable with monetary damages, future harms to the battery through software updates should be equally quantifiable,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs’ conclusory allegation of Tesla’s continuing practices in its plea for relief does not establish otherwise. The court understands that plaintiffs oppose Tesla’s conduct in pushing out updates that drain their batteries, and so want the court to order Tesla to stop. But regardless of how plaintiffs may feel about the conduct, the question is whether money damages would sufficiently compensate plaintiffs for their injuries.”

Tigar said the plaintiffs did not show how Tesla plans to continue these practices in the future, nor whether the company bypassed security measures to ensure its updates were downloaded. In addition, some plaintiffs downloaded the updates voluntarily. 

“Although courts do not 'foreclose' claims of vitiated consent under these subsections, users who voluntarily installed software ‘have serious difficulty’ pleading unauthorized access under the CFAA, especially given the heightened pleading requirements applied in consumer-protection claims sounding in fraud,” Tigar wrote. “Plaintiffs’ allegations of misleading omissions do not establish, for example, that Tesla posed as a different entity or misdescribed the nature of the software updates to gain access to plaintiffs’ vehicle systems.”

Tigar rejected most of Tesla’s attempt to toss the plaintiffs’ claims for common law trespass under the state laws of Florida, Virginia, Michigan, Washington and Arizona. Only the Texas-based claims could be dismissed, Tigar said.

The judge rejected Tesla’s contention that choice of law issues preclude the court from applying California trespass law to the plaintiffs who do not live in California. In general, conflict of law issues should be settled at the class certification stage of litigation, he said, because “choice of law analysis is a fact-specific inquiry, which requires a more developed factual record than is available at the motion to dismiss stage.”

The plaintiffs may file an amended complaint within 21 days from Tuesday. If they do not, the claims already dismissed will be dismissed again with prejudice.

Attorneys for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

In its motion to dismiss filed July 27, 2023, Tesla argued that the plaintiffs did not cite facts to show how it circumvented any technical barriers to access the software on owners’ vehicles, nor any evidence of misrepresentation or fraud Tesla committed to make the software updates.

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