Seven Tesla Owners Sue Tesla for Fraud, Case Accepted

This lawsuit is China’s first collective rights protection case targeting the FSD function.

According to Chinese media reports, in August 2025, seven Tesla owners sued Tesla Motors Sales and Service (Beijing) Co., Ltd. at the Beijing Daxing District People’s Court on grounds of sales contract disputes.

These owners accused Tesla of failing to deliver on the promised features of its FSD (Full Self-Driving) capability, demanding a refund of the FSD purchase fee and triple damages. The cases have been officially accepted and are awaiting the first trial.

One of the plaintiffs, a Tesla owner using the pseudonym Liu Min, shared that he purchased FSD for 56,000 yuan at a Tesla store in May 2020, motivated by his need for long-distance driving. Liu stated: “At the time, both the store salesperson and Elon Musk claimed that FSD full self-driving would definitely be achieved and soon available in China, and that the price would increase later. I believed them and bought it.” Five years after the purchase, FSD did indeed become more expensive, but the promised features remained unfulfilled.

The timeline goes back to February 25 of this year. While some domestic owners had received Tesla’s first rollout of city road autopilot functionality, Liu Min learned after consulting customer service that the current “FSD Intelligent Assisted Driving Function” only supports certain models equipped with HW4.0. Vehicles with HW3.0 are temporarily excluded from the rollout.

Meanwhile, some owners applied for a refund through the Tesla app’s customer service but received the response: “Intelligent assisted driving purchases are non-refundable.”

As background information, FSD is Tesla’s extra-cost driving assistance package, operating in China on a “prepaid + iterative feature delivery” model. Its price has increased from 56,000 yuan in 2020 to 64,000 yuan now.

Faced with the long-unfulfilled promises, Liu Min and six other Tesla owners chose to file a lawsuit.

Article 20 of the Consumer Rights Protection Law stipulates that businesses providing information to consumers about the quality, performance,uses, or shelf life of goods or services must do so truthfully and comprehensively, without false or misleading publicity. Article 55 states that if a business engages in fraudulent practices when providing goods or services, it must compensate consumers upon request for their losses, with an additional payment amounting to three times the cost of the goods or services.

The plaintiffs’ representative lawyer stated that the defendant was aware that its advertised full self-driving functionality had not been approved by Chinese regulators, could not deliver its core promoted features, and concealed hardware technical defects. “This batch of accepted cases involves seven owners suing over Tesla’s FSD fraud.” More Tesla owners are continuing to file cases, with hundreds consulting about it, mostly related to FSD.

This lawsuit is the first collective rights protection case in China targeting FSD functionality. Regardless of the outcome, it will serve as an important reference for consumer protection in the smart vehicle industry.