SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California regulators are threatening to suspend Tesla’s license to sell its electric cars in the state early next year unless the automaker tones down its marketing tactics for its self-driving features after a judge concluded the Elon Musk-led company has been misleading consumers about the technology’s capabilities.
The potential 30-day blackout of Tesla’s California sales is the primary punishment being recommended to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles in a decision released late Tuesday. The ruling by Administrative Law Judge Juliet Cox determined that Tesla had for years engaged in deceptive marketing practices by using the terms “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” to promote the autonomous technology available in many of its cars.
After presiding over five days of hearings held in Oakland, California in July, Cox also recommended suspending Tesla’s license to manufacture cars at its plant in Fremont, California. But California regulators aren’t going to impose that part of the judge’s proposed penalty.
Tesla will have a 90-day window to make changes that more clearly convey the limits of its self-driving technology to avoid having its California sales license suspended. After California regulators filed its action against Tesla in 2023, the Austin, Texas, company already made one significant change by putting in wording that made it clear its Full Self-Driving package still required supervision by a human driver while it’s deployed.
Nobody’s even buying EVs right now, so this won’t really affect Tesla that much at all. Dealers are stuck with a bunch of new inventory that no one wants, because once the COVID bubble burst, everyone realized how overpriced and underequipped they are. I took a ride in that SUV “Mustang” once and was blown away by how Spartan the interior is. Same goes for the Jaguar I-Pace. Even my 350Z, made in the era when Nissan was cutting corners to save money, has a nicer interior than some modern EVs. Yet dealers are expecting people to fork over $60k+ for these bare-bones cars.
To matters worse, you have morons going onto TikTok because they didn’t do their homework before buying, didn’t have a charger installed in their house, and then go crying about things like charging times and range because they have to spend several hours every day sitting at a public charger after work. They just thought that they could plug their car into a 120v wall outlet and it would be able to charge the car enough. And then other morons watch those videos and eat that shit up.