Tesla and Elon Musk pursued by shareholders who say that robotaxis violates traffic laws

Tesla shareholders put a legal action on Monday before the Federal Court against the company EV and CEO Elon Musk, alleging that they had made “materially false and misleading declarations” on the security of their robotaxis and the regulatory examination which comes from the launch of autonomous vehicles. Tesla launched its Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas on June 22, but there is a human “safety instructor” on the passenger seat, and robotic vehicles are geofized in a relatively small area of the city.

Despite Tesla’s precautions, there have been several videos published online of frightening incidents with Robotaxie acting irregularly in Austin. The new trial quotes a Bloomberg article on June 23 entitled “Tesla Robotaxi’s videos show speed, driving in the wrong track”, to explain how Robotaxy would have violated traffic laws from their first day of operation.

The trial also quotes an article of June 23 with the title “Tesla Robotaxi incidents draw a meticulous examination of the US Safety Agency”, about the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in contact with Tesla on social media videos showing “incidents” involving road safety. The pursuit notes that Tesla’s stock has come across reports on Austin problems with Robotaxis.

The costume also notes a call for Tesla results in April where Musk said: “The team and I are laser focused on the implementation of Robotaxi in Austin in June.” This call was notable because it was just after Tesla reported a 71% drop in profits, but Musk continued to promise that great things happened.

Musk has spent years promising that Teslas will soon be completely autonomous. In fact, there is an entire Wikipedia page devoted to Musk’s failed predictions on the moment when the so-called full autonomy would allow Tesla vehicles to safely drive people without any driver supervision. And Musk always promises that this will happen soon. In fact, he often claims that they are already driving, as August 3 when he wrote: “Teslas can behave!”

The prosecution was filed by Pomerantz LLP in the American district court, western District of Texas, and is called Morand v. Tesla Inc. et al. Financial director Vaibhav Taneja and Zachary Kirkhorn, who was Tesla financial director until 2023, are also listed as defendants with Musk and Tesla. The continuation of the shareholders alleys that Taneja and Kirkhorn “enriched” “by engaging in sales of initiates of the company’s actions while these actions have negotiated at artificially high prices”. Neither Taneja nor Kirkhorn immediately answered the questions sent on Tuesday. The trial is looking for a status of collective appeal.

Tesla is struggling to lower sales this year, largely linked to Musk’s support for President Donald Trump, to his role in the destruction of the vital parties of the American federal government, and these two Nazi style greetings which he granted on January 20. And a jury in Miami ordered Tesla to pay $ 240 million in damage last week in a case involving its Autopilot technology.

The Tesla Robotaxi is distinct from the most ambitious cybercab vehicle that Musk unveiled in October 2024. Although the Cybercab is a concept for a specially designed two-seater vehicle that has no steering wheel and pedals, the Robotaxi vehicle (anyone can buy generic. Musk said that cybercab will be available in 2-3 years, an assertion that should obviously be made with a certain. skepticism, given the rather optimistic deadlines of the billionaire.

Tesla would also have launched its Robotaxi service in San Francisco on July 31, although it is still not clear what is happening there. California Public Utilities Commission told Wired that Tesla claims that the initiative in question was a “taxi service reserved for employees for friends and family of employees” as well as “selected” members of the public, but Musk has strongly suggested on X that everything they do in the bay region is a much broader launch.

Tesla did not immediately answer the questions sent by email on Tuesday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back, although the company has abolished its public relations department in 2020, and obtaining a kind of answer seems unlikely. Musk is notoriously hostile to the media and has set up an automatic answering machine shortly after buying Twitter who just answered a shit emoji to questions from any journalist.