New York man took Elon Musk at his word that Teslas could drive themselves. Then he hit a tree

A suburban New York man says he decided to purchase a Tesla after taking its billionaire chief executive at his word that the company’s vehicles are able to drive themselves, but once the car’s much-touted autopilot feature was activated, it promptly got confused and collided with a tree.

Ashutosh Shankar is now suing the electric carmaker in an effort to hold the company “and its representatives, including CEO Elon Musk, accountable for years of making misleading and deceptive statements” regarding Tesla’s supposed autonomous driving abilities, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Westchester County Supreme Court.

In 2022, Shankar was induced by Musk’s bold claims to buy a new Tesla Model Y performance sedan, the complaint states. Things seemed fine until the following year, when the car – for which the global finance and compliance executive paid thousands extra for the advertised self-driving package – “failed to follow the road at a fork and instead drove directly into a tree down the driveway” of a home in Bedford, New York.

The wreck caused Shankar “serious and severe” injuries to his neck and back, attorney Robert Greenstein told The Independent.

“Tesla misrepresented its full self-driving technology,” Greenstein said. “My client was led to believe their self-driving technology was more advanced than it was. They promised full self-driving capability, but they didn’t deliver that.”

Tesla officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Shankar bought his Model Y in 2022, spending $5,000 above the vehicle's base price to get the so-called Enhanced Autopilot version of Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system package, or, ADAS, according to his complaint. The filing notes he pulled the trigger based on Tesla and Musk’s public statements about the technology’s advantages.

However, the complaint goes on, Tesla has “deceptively and misleadingly marketed its ADAS technology as autonomous driving technology under various names, including ‘Autopilot,’ ‘Enhanced Autopilot,’ and ‘Full Self-Driving Capability,’ the latter two of which Tesla charges consumers thousands of additional dollars to add to their new vehicle.”

On September 30, 2023, Shankar was a passenger in his own car while someone else drove, the complaint states. But, it contends, after the vehicle was set to full self-driving mode, it crashed.

The incident was caused “wholly and solely by reason of [Tesla’s] negligence,” the complaint contends.

“Drivers have consistently found that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software has a lot of problems, such as cars failing to make routine turns, running red lights, and steering directly into large objects and oncoming traffic,” it continues, “There have also been numerous collisions involving Tesla’s purportedly cutting-edge ADAS software, including Tesla vehicles plowing at high speeds into large stationary objects such as emergency vehicles and an overturned box truck.”

The complaint adds that “[d]ozens of people have suffered fatal and other serious injuries as a result of these ADAS-related collisions,” which have resulted in “a host of investigations by state and federal regulators.”

“Tesla knew for years that its statements regarding its ADAS technology were deceptive and misleading, but the company made them anyway,” the complaint states, claiming the carnaker did so “to generate excitement about the company's vehicles and thereby improve its financial condition by, among other things, attracting investment, increasing sales, avoiding bankruptcy, increasing Tesla’s stock price, and helping to establish Tesla as a dominant player in the electric vehicle market.”

Further, the complaint alleges, Tesla itself “has admitted” that the term “full self-driving" is inaccurate. In fact, it says, full self-driving Teslas are not fully self-driving, as they still require a driver to steer, brake and accelerate “as needed.”

“In the meantime, Tesla and Elon Musk continued their deceptive marketing to consumers,” the complaint states.

This, according to the complaint, occurred on Tesla’s blog and website, earnings calls, podcasts, and on Musk's X account. It says Musk and Co. “knew… or should have known” that their statements about full self-driving were “untrue, misleading, and likely to deceive the public.”

“On information and belief, Defendant is nowhere near being able to deliver fully self-driving vehicles,” the complaint argues.

Last year, the family of a California man who died at the wheel of a Tesla in “full self-driving” mode also sued over Tesla and Musk’s claims about the technology.

The family’s attorney, Brett Schreiber, told The Independent, “This is yet another example of Tesla using our public roadways to perform research and development of its autonomous driving technology.”

In short, Schreiber said, Tesla’s self-driving feature is “not really ready for primetime.”

Giovanni Mendoza, the driver who perished in that incident, “saw, heard, and/or read many of Tesla or Musk’s deceptive claims on Twitter, Tesla’s official blog, or in the news media,” his family’s December 2024 complaint said. “Giovanni believed those claims were true, and thus believed the ‘Autopilot’ feature with the ‘full self driving’ upgrade was safer than a human driver, and could be trusted to safely navigate public highways autonomously.”

Tesla’s self-driving claims have also led to class-action suits in the U.S., Australia and Europe. In 2020, a German court ordered Tesla to cease all advertising related to self-driving.

Shankar’s lawsuit accuses Tesla of fraud and deceit, negligent misrepresentation, negligence and unjust enrichment. He is seeking an unspecified money judgment, including punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees.

Tesla now has roughly three weeks to formally respond to Shankar’s claims.