Ethan Carter
Tesla owners are raising concerns that their previous contracts regarding the Full Self-Driving (FSD) option have been subtly altered.
According to Electrek, multiple Tesla owners have reported that purchase agreements for the FSD feature, signed between 2016 and early 2024, now contain “supervised” terminology. In some instances, these owners have noted that the original documents are no longer available online.
Oliver Abcarius, the owner of a 2018 Model 3, shared with Electrek that he purchased FSD for his vehicle back in 2019. Recently, while preparing for a refund request, he attempted to access the purchase agreement and discovered it had been renamed to “Full-Self Driving (Supervised) – August 12, 2019.” However, when he clicked the link, it directed him to an invalid page, as shown in a screenshot shared by Electrek.
The significant detail is that Tesla only began using the “supervised” terminology for this feature in 2024.
“Tesla has retroactively modified my documents from 2019 when I purchased FSD,” Abcarius informed Electrek. “Back in 2019, there was no ‘supervised’ language included in the purchase agreement. I can no longer access the document since it links to an invalid page.”
Abcarius stated that a similar situation occurred with the documents for his wife’s 2020 Model Y, which also included FSD. He mentioned that the “Motor Vehicle Purchase Agreement” is now inaccessible.
Abcarius also noted that while other Tesla documents remain available, those related to their FSD purchases are not retrievable.
Electrek has verified that other owners of HW3 Teslas, an earlier version of Tesla’s self-driving hardware, are experiencing the same issue.
For years, Tesla marketed the software package labeled “Full Self-Driving Capability,” asserting that vehicles would eventually gain full autonomous driving capabilities through future software updates. in 2024, the company rebranded the feature as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised),” clarifying that the technology still necessitates human supervision.
This distinction is increasingly important. Recently, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla vehicles equipped with HW3 will never achieve true unsupervised self-driving capabilities.
“Unfortunately, Hardware 3, I wish it were different, but Hardware 3 simply lacks the capability to achieve unsupervised FSD,” Musk stated during an earnings call in April. “At one point, we believed it would, but compared to Hardware 4, it has only 1/8 the memory bandwidth.”
This situation unfolds as Tesla faces intensifying legal scrutiny regarding its driver-assistance technology and its marketing practices.
Earlier this year, a judge upheld a $243 million jury ruling related to a fatal crash in 2019 linked to Tesla’s Autopilot feature in Florida.
In February, the California Department of Motor Vehicles announced that Tesla had ceased using the term “Autopilot” in marketing its vehicles within the state, deeming the label misleading. This change allowed Tesla to avert a 30-day suspension of its dealer and manufacturer licenses in California.
Tesla is also confronting a separate lawsuit in Texas concerning a Cybertruck crash associated with its self-driving technology.
In this case, the plaintiff, Justine Saint Amour, asserts that she purchased her Cybertruck in February 2025. A few months later, on August 18, while driving in Houston with Autopilot engaged, her vehicle approached a Y-shaped overpass. The lawsuit claims that the vehicle failed to turn right and instead continued straight into a concrete barrier and the freeway below. Saint Amour alleges that she disengaged Autopilot in an attempt to regain control but was unable to avoid the collision.
The lawsuit contends that Tesla bears responsibility for the crash due to its engineering decisions and allegedly deceptive marketing practices.
Electrek also points out that Tesla has previously removed content related to its self-driving technology. In August 2024, Tesla deleted a blog post from October 2016 that stated, “all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory — including Model 3 — will have the hardware necessary for full self-driving capability at a safety level significantly higher than that of a human driver.”
Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Daniel Mercer
