BREAKING: California just called Elon’s bluff — DMV warns “autopilot” hype could get Tesla kicked off the lot.
California just slapped a bright red warning label on Elon Musk’s favorite toy, telling Tesla it has 60 days to stop lying about “self-driving” or face a ban on new car sales in the nation’s biggest EV market. State regulators ruled that Tesla’s Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” were sold like robot chauffeurs when, in reality, the cars still need human brains behind the wheel.
The DMV flat-out said Tesla’s shiny ADAS features “could not then, and cannot now” operate as true autonomous vehicles, and accused the company of breaking state law with deceptive marketing. If Tesla refuses to clean up its ads and even the name “Autopilot,” the company could be hit with a 30-day suspension from selling cars in California and a pause on its manufacturing license. For a company that still builds cars in Fremont, that is not a slap on the wrist — that’s a boot to the bumper.
Tesla is doing its best innocent act on X, whining that this is just a “consumer protection” order with “not one single customer” complaining, while bragging that Autopilot “saves lives” with rosy crash stats from its own internal report. But regulators and families tell a darker story: Autopilot has been linked to crashes and lawsuits across California and the country, including the 2018 death of Apple engineer Walter Huang, whose family sued Tesla for hyping self-driving so aggressively that drivers thought they could look away. Tesla quietly settled that case after evidence showed his car, in Autopilot mode, steered straight into a concrete barrier at highway speed.
The DMV says it is “committed to safety” and will hold every automaker to the same standard — meaning the era of Silicon Valley car CEOs testing beta software on public roads may finally be running out of road. Musk may have moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas to escape California politics, but his company still wants California’s money, and now the state is sending a clear message: stop selling science fiction as safety tech, or park it.
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