A class action lawsuit in Australia initiated against Tesla in February this year is gaining momentum as around 10,000 Tesla owners in the country have registered interest in the lawsuit for claimed issues including phantom braking, battery issues and misleading Autopilot claims, reported ABC News.
The class action lawsuit alleges that Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles “have a propensity to autonomous engage Automatic Emergency Braking [Autonomous Emergency Braking, or AEB] abruptly in inappropriate circumstances, leading to a risk of collisions,” Drive quoted law firm JGA Sadler as saying.
An owner of a Model 3 allegedly experienced sudden braking on the highway, which resulted in a truck nearly colliding into the rear of the Tesla, and the unintended braking has occurred to this vehicle owner on numerous occasions, according to the ABC News report.
FSD (Supervised) testing in Melbourne, Australia
And yes, that’s a hook turn pic.twitter.com/tjakHvRohP
— Tesla AI (@Tesla_AI) May 16, 2025
“The issues that have been reported to us are that vehicles can be driving along on the highway at 100 km/h or 110 km/h and all of a sudden the brakes are applied suddenly and without reason. We’ve had many reports of people who registered for this class action, telling us that they’ve been driving with their hands on the vehicle, fully alert, and these issues have occurred nonetheless,” class action lawyer Rebecca Jancauskas told ABC News.
In addition to the phantom braking issue, the class action lawsuit also looks to address battery range figures which have allegedly not come close to the advertised range figures, the report added.
Last month, Tesla demonstrated its Full Self Driving (FSD) driving assistance suite in Melbourne, showing the feature’s ability to navigate the vehicle around traffic encountered on its journey, including changing lanes to get around stationary vehicles, crossing a junction, and perform a hook turn, which is to turn right across traffic from the far left lane (in Melbourne, this is to free up space for the movement of trams).
The American EV maker announced last September that its Full Self Driving assistance suite would be released in right-hand-drive markets from late in the first quarter, or early in the second quarter of this year, following its release in Europe and China in Q1.
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