Tesla owner won $10k in court for Tesla's FSD lies. Tesla is still fighting him
Source: Hacker News
Background
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【https://electrek.co/2024/08/24/tesla-deletes-its-blog-post-stating-all-cars-have-self-driving-hardware/】.
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. Tesla is still fighting to delay payment, even just a few days at a time.
Gawiser purchased a Tesla Model 3 in August 2021 and paid $10,000 for the company’s Full Self‑Driving (FSD) software. At the time, the price of the software had gradually increased【https://electrek.co/2020/10/22/tesla-increasing-price-full-self-driving-package/】, which Tesla said it would do as the software gained more capabilities and got closer to release.
Later, Tesla lowered prices【https://electrek.co/2023/09/01/tesla-cuts-fsd-price-by-3k-in-us-3-5k-in-canada/】 and eventually moved to a subscription‑only model【https://electrek.co/2026/01/14/tesla-tsla-stop-selling-full-self-driving-package-subscription-only/】, where it stands now – though Tesla is still charging some owners for hardware they already bought【https://electrek.co/2021/07/18/tesla-is-charging-owners-1500-for-hardware-they-already-paid-for/】.
The $62 k Gawiser paid for his Tesla Model 3 – including $10 k for Full Self‑Driving
After five years, Gawiser’s purchase should have allowed his vehicle to drive all by itself. Tesla’s software was continually getting better, and the company’s CEO had promised in January 2021【https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autonomous_Tesla_vehicles_by_Elon_Musk】 that “the car will drive itself for the reliability in excess of a human this year.”
That did not happen. Tesla has yet to deliver software 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【https://electrek.co/2026/04/30/tesla-robotaxi-unsupervised-finally-signs-ramping-up/】.
(Tesla previously said you’d be able to use your car as a robotaxi, too, but despite that the company is now making revenue with FSD software in its “Robotaxi” fleet, it still doesn’t let you do it【https://electrek.co/2025/06/22/tesla-said-youd-earn-money-with-fsd-now-its-earning-money-why-cant-you/】.)
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 act. He reached out to Tesla’s resolutions email address in November 2025 to ask for a refund for his non‑functional 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,
- failing to slow for a school zone.
Overall, the software simply does not deliver what it promised – he was sold a Level 5 system【https://www.sae.org/news/blog/sae-levels-driving-automation-clarity-refinements】, and FSD is still Level 2.
He was given the cold shoulder. When he asked again in January, he was told the only remedy would be to visit a service center to make sure the system was working properly – which would not upgrade it to the Level 5 system he paid for.
Small‑Claims Lawsuit
Gawiser then filed a lawsuit in small‑claims court in Travis County, Texas, where he lives and where Tesla moved its headquarters to. Small‑claims courts are designed for the public to use without lawyers. While Tesla’s purchase agreement has an arbitration clause, it is also possible to take disputes to small‑claims court.
The “arbitration clause” from Gawiser’s purchase agreement.
All it took was finding Tesla’s registered agent (under “service of process” on Tesla’s legal page), then filing a small‑claims lawsuit online with the Texas justice of the peace【https://guides.sll.texas.gov/small-claims】. This cost him $72.88, including the cost to send certified mail to serve Tesla with the court documents.
After being served, Tesla again did not respond. A court date was set for a default‑judgment hearing (what happens when one party does not respond). The hearing, held via video call, featured Gawiser’s evidence showing how much he paid for FSD and that it had not yet been delivered. The court entered a judgment in his favor for $10,672.88 – the amount Gawiser paid for FSD, including taxes and court fees.
After the default judgment was filed on April 1, Tesla had three weeks to file a response and missed the April 22 deadline (you can’t claim it was an “April Fools” excuse【https://electrek.co/2025/11/06/tesla-delays-roadster-demo-to-april-1-next-year-production-to-2027-28/】). This is when we first heard from Gawiser.
However, that wasn’t the end of the saga. Tesla waited five more days and filed a request for an extension, stating they had not received notice of the default‑judgment hearing and therefore couldn’t appear. Rather than requesting a rehearing, Tesla merely asked for the deadline to be pushed back by five days and then failed to submit any additional evidence showing its position.
Side of the Story (which it has to do if requesting a re‑trial)
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 22 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.
Unless their counsel happens to know Tesla’s own products better than their CEO, they have no defense to this cause of action. The requirement for a “meritorious defense” is laid out in Craddock v. Sunshine Bus Lines. Tesla, Inc. has not presented a “prima facie meritorious defense,” nor do they have one.
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. (Further, the current hardware, HW4, also has not yet delivered Level 5 autonomy to customers.)
Summary of Gawiser’s Argument
- I bought this software; it wasn’t delivered.
- There is no legal argument that can get around those facts as long as the software remains undelivered.
The court has not yet responded to this most recent back‑and‑forth, but Gawiser is confident that he will prevail.
Payment Issue
Gawiser filed a “writ of execution” (another $240 in court fees) just yesterday, which would allow Texas law enforcement to seize and sell off enough of Tesla’s property to satisfy the judgment against them. If it comes to that, we hope he brings cameras.
Electrek’s Take
Gawiser’s case is one of the few we’ve heard of where owners were able to get refunds from Tesla—either in small‑claims court (example) or through arbitration (example). These cases remain rare given the scale of the broken promise.
There are currently millions of vehicles on the road that have no hope of receiving the full‑self‑driving hardware they were sold with (report). The Tesla HW3 retrofit “micro‑factory” plan (article) is unlikely to materialise.
In addition to these small‑claims victories, a number of class‑action suits are progressing worldwide:
| Region | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Ongoing | Tesla loses bid to kill class action |
| China | Ongoing | Tesla sued in China over HW3 delivery |
| Australia | Ongoing | Thousands join Australian class action |
| Europe | Ongoing (Dutch collective claim) | Dutch claim site – Tesla’s response: “be patient” (link) |
Collectively, these suits could result in billions of dollars in liability (analysis) for the company—none of which would be necessary but for the CEO’s constant false promises (list of predictions).
It’s possible that all owners will eventually receive some form of rectification, and Gawiser’s case shows how one owner took matters into his own hands and got it resolved—at least for now. We’ll update this post if Tesla employs further delaying tactics.
Why Gawiser’s case may not be repeatable
- The default judgment resulted from Tesla’s failure to respond in small‑claims court, not from a substantive ruling on the merits.
- Small‑claims decisions do not set binding legal precedent, so another court is not obligated to rule the same way.
Nevertheless, the case offers a useful gauge of how these disputes can play out in practice. One more owner succeeded in obtaining his due, and whether due to intentional tactics or internal disorganisation, Tesla barely mounted a defence. If defending such cases were easy, the company would likely have done so—but it didn’t.
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