Tesla owners report that old contracts dealing with the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature have been quietly changed.
“Elektrek” reported on this It has confirmed with many Tesla owners that purchase agreements for the FSD feature signed between 2016 and early 2024 now include “controlled” language. In some cases, owners say the original documents are also no longer available online.
2018 Model 3 owner Oliver Abcarius told Electrek that he bought FSD for his car in 2019. He recently tried to break the sales contract while preparing a refund case and noticed the document was titled “Full-Self Driving (Supervised) – August 12, 2019.” But when he tried to open the document, the link led to an invalid page, according to a screenshot posted by Electrek.
The thing is, Tesla didn’t start using the “controlled” language for the feature until 2024.
“Tesla retroactively updated my documents from 2019 when I paid for FSD,” Abcarius told Electrek. “The 2019 Tesla purchase agreement did not contain ‘controlled’ language. I can no longer open the document because it links to an invalid page.”
Abcarius said the same thing happened with the paperwork for his wife’s 2020 Model Y purchased with FSD. He said the “Car Purchase Agreement” is no longer available.
According to Abcarius, the couple’s other Tesla documents are still available, but none detailing their FSD purchases.
Electrek says other owners of HW3 Teslas, an older version of Tesla’s self-driving hardware, have experienced the same problem.
For years, Tesla marketed its software package under the label “Full Self-Driving Capability,” claiming that cars would eventually be able to fully drive themselves through future software updates. But in 2024, the company made it clear that the technology still required human supervision, renaming the feature “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)”.
This distinction is now even more important. A few months ago, Elon Musk confirmed that there will be Tesla cars with the HW3 can never achieve uncontrolled self-control.
“Unfortunately, Hardware 3, I’d like it to be different, but Hardware 3 just doesn’t have the ability to achieve unsupervised FSD,” Musk said during an earnings call in April. “We once thought it would, but Hardware 4 only has 1/8 the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4.”
All of this comes as Tesla faces increasing legal scrutiny over its driver assistance technology and how it sells it.
A judge earlier this year It upheld a $243 million jury verdict in the case of a fatal accident 2019 In Florida, it is connected to Tesla’s Autopilot feature.
In February, the California Department of Motor Vehicles also announced that Tesla had “ceased its testimony.”Autopilot” in marketing its cars in the state, calling the label misleading.The change allowed Tesla to avoid a 30-day suspension of its California dealer and manufacturer licenses.
Tesla also faces a separate lawsuit in Texas Cybertruck crash involves self-driving technology.
In that case, plaintiff Justine Saint Amour says she bought her Cybertruck in February 2025. A few months later, on August 18, he was driving on Autopilot in Houston when he approached a Y-shaped overpass. The vehicle allegedly failed to swerve to the right and instead continued straight into the concrete barrier and onto the freeway below. Saint Amour claims he turned off the autopilot and tried to regain control, but was unable to avoid hitting an obstacle.
The lawsuit alleges that Tesla is responsible for the accident due to engineering choices and faulty marketing.
Electrek also notes that Tesla has previously released material related to self-driving technology. In August 2024, Tesla retracted a blog post from October 2016 that said “all Tesla vehicles produced at our factory, including the Model 3, will be equipped for full self-driving capability at a level of safety significantly greater than that of a human driver.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
