Tesla owner won $10k in court for Tesla’s FSD lies. Tesla is still fighting him.

特斯拉车主因特斯拉 FSD 虚假宣传胜诉获赔 1 万美元，特斯拉仍在抗诉

For over a decade now, Tesla has sold a promise of vehicles that can drive themselves, even stating that every car it produced had all the hardware for self-driving. But after years of the company being unable to deliver, some owners want their money back. Ben Gawiser is one of those owners, who recently won a $10,600 judgment due to Tesla’s failure to deliver. But Tesla is still fighting to delay payment, even just a few days at a time. 十多年来，特斯拉一直在兜售“车辆可以自动驾驶”的承诺，甚至声称其生产的每一辆车都具备自动驾驶所需的所有硬件。然而，在公司多年无法兑现承诺后，一些车主想要回他们的钱。Ben Gawiser 就是其中之一，他最近因特斯拉未能交付承诺的功能而赢得了 10,600 美元的胜诉判决。但特斯拉仍在抗诉以拖延付款，哪怕只是拖延几天。

Gawiser purchased a Tesla Model 3 in August of 2021, and paid $10,000 for the company’s Full Self-Driving software. At the time, the price of the software had gradually increased, which Tesla said it would do as the software gained more capabilities and got closer to release. (Later, Tesla lowered prices and eventually moved to a subscription-only model, where it stands now – though Tesla is still charging some owners for hardware they already bought). Gawiser 于 2021 年 8 月购买了一辆特斯拉 Model 3，并支付了 10,000 美元购买该公司的“全自动驾驶”（FSD）软件。当时，该软件的价格一直在逐步上涨，特斯拉称这是因为软件功能不断增强且离正式发布越来越近。（后来，特斯拉降低了价格，并最终转向了仅限订阅的模式，目前即是如此——尽管特斯拉仍在向一些车主收取他们已经购买过的硬件费用）。

After five years, Gawiser’s purchase should have allowed his vehicle to drive all by itself. After all, Tesla’s software was continually getting better, and the company’s CEO had promised in January 2021 that “the car will drive itself for the reliability in excess of a human this year.” However, that did not happen. Tesla is still yet to deliver software that is capable of level 5 full self-driving to any owner. Even on its own fleet of Robotaxis, only a few run at Level 4 autonomy in limited circumstances. 五年过去了，Gawiser 的这笔购买本应让他的车辆实现完全自动驾驶。毕竟，特斯拉的软件一直在不断改进，且该公司首席执行官曾在 2021 年 1 月承诺：“今年，汽车的自动驾驶可靠性将超过人类。”然而，这并没有发生。特斯拉至今仍未向任何车主交付具备 5 级全自动驾驶能力的软件。即使在其自有的 Robotaxi 车队中，也只有少数车辆能在有限的情况下实现 4 级自动驾驶。

With all these false promises and what amounts to a five-digit, nearly five-year loan given to Tesla, Gawiser had had enough, and decided to do something about it. So he reached out to Tesla’s resolutions email address in November 2025 to ask for a refund for his nonfunctional software… albeit with some aggressive language. He cited instances of his vehicle stopping in the middle of the road, asking him to take over within minutes of activation, and failing to slow for a school zone. 面对这些虚假承诺，以及相当于借给特斯拉一笔五位数、长达近五年的贷款，Gawiser 忍无可忍，决定采取行动。因此，他在 2025 年 11 月联系了特斯拉的投诉处理邮箱，要求退还其无法使用的软件费用……尽管措辞有些激烈。他列举了车辆在道路中间停车、激活后几分钟内就要求他接管，以及在学校区域未能减速等实例。

But overall, the software simply does not deliver what it promised – he was sold a level 5 system, and FSD is still level 2. He was given the cold shoulder, and asked again in January, at which point he was told that the only remedy available would be to visit a service center to make sure the system is working properly. But that wouldn’t have upgraded it to the level 5 system he paid for. 但总的来说，该软件根本没有兑现其承诺——他购买的是 5 级系统，而 FSD 目前仍处于 2 级。他遭到了冷遇，并在 1 月再次询问，此时他被告知唯一的补救措施是前往服务中心检查系统是否正常工作。但这并不能将其升级为他所支付的 5 级系统。

Then, he filed a lawsuit in small claims court in Travis County, Texas, where he lives and where Tesla moved its headquarters to. Gawiser isn’t a lawyer, but small claims courts are designed to be used by the public, rather than lawyers. While Tesla’s purchase agreement has an arbitration clause, it is also possible to take disputes to small claims court. 随后，他在德克萨斯州特拉维斯县的小额索赔法院提起了诉讼，他居住在那里，特斯拉也将总部搬到了那里。Gawiser 不是律师，但小额索赔法院的设计初衷就是供公众而非律师使用。虽然特斯拉的购买协议中包含仲裁条款，但将纠纷诉诸小额索赔法院也是可行的。

After being served with the lawsuit, Tesla again did not respond. So a court date was set for a default judgment hearing, which is what happens when one party does not respond to a court case. The hearing happened over video call, where Gawiser provided evidence showing how much he paid for FSD and that it had not yet been delivered, and the court made a judgment in his favor in the amount of $10,672.88, the amount Gawiser paid for FSD, including taxes and court fees. 在收到诉讼通知后，特斯拉再次没有回应。因此，法院安排了缺席判决听证会，这是当一方当事人对诉讼不予回应时会发生的情况。听证会通过视频通话进行，Gawiser 提供了证据，证明了他为 FSD 支付的金额以及该功能尚未交付的事实。法院最终做出了对他有利的判决，金额为 10,672.88 美元，即 Gawiser 为 FSD 支付的费用，包括税费和诉讼费。

After the default judgment was filed on April 1, Tesla had 3 weeks to file a response, and didn’t do so by the April 22 deadline. However, that wasn’t the end of the saga. Tesla waited 5 more days and filed a request for an extension, stating that they had not received notice of the default judgment hearing and therefore couldn’t show up. But rather than requesting a rehearing, Tesla merely requested the deadline be pushed back by 5 days, and then didn’t submit any additional evidence showing its side of the story. 在 4 月 1 日缺席判决生效后，特斯拉有 3 周的时间提交回应，但并未在 4 月 22 日的截止日期前采取行动。然而，事情并没有就此结束。特斯拉又等了 5 天，提交了一份延期申请，声称他们没有收到缺席判决听证会的通知，因此无法出席。但特斯拉并没有要求重审，仅仅是要求将截止日期推迟 5 天，随后也没有提交任何额外证据来陈述其立场。

In Gawiser’s response to Tesla’s most recent request, he took a swipe at Tesla’s lack of defense, using one of Musk’s statements during this quarter’s earnings call as evidence: “Tesla, Inc. does not have ‘meritorious defense’ for this action as their CEO as recently as April 22nd, 2026 said that Tesla could not deliver a working version of ‘Full Self-Driving’ for the vehicle that the Plaintiff purchased required by the contract.” 在 Gawiser 对特斯拉最新请求的回应中，他抨击了特斯拉缺乏辩护理由，并引用了马斯克在本季度财报电话会议上的一番话作为证据：“特斯拉公司对此诉讼没有‘正当辩护理由’，因为他们的首席执行官在 2026 年 4 月 22 日还表示，特斯拉无法为原告购买的车辆交付合同所要求的‘全自动驾驶’可用版本。”

In that call, Musk finally admitted that HW3 cars like Gawiser’s would never be able to drive themselves, and would require Tesla to build factories just to upgrade them. This would only add more wait for Gawiser if he did want to continue waiting patiently for FSD, as there is no indication that Tesla has started building those factories to deliver the hardware needed to make the promised software work. 在电话会议中，马斯克最终承认，像 Gawiser 拥有的这类 HW3 硬件车辆将永远无法实现自动驾驶，并且需要特斯拉专门建立工厂来对其进行升级。如果 Gawiser 真的想继续耐心等待 FSD，这只会增加更多的等待时间，因为目前没有任何迹象表明特斯拉已经开始建设这些工厂来交付实现承诺软件所需的硬件。