A court has ruled in favor of Tesla in a lawsuit filed by vehicle owners demanding contract cancellation and refunds, claiming that the company failed to fulfill its obligations regarding the purchase of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) option.

The 30th Civil Division of the Seoul Central District Court ruled against the plaintiffs in the first trial of a lawsuit for the return of purchase prices filed by 89 Tesla vehicle owners against Tesla Korea Ltd. today (October 29).

The plaintiff Tesla owners purchased vehicles equipped with Tesla's full self-driving feature, known as the FSD (Full Self-Driving) option, between 2019 and 2022.

However, as the fully autonomous driving feature was not implemented even after several years, the owners filed a lawsuit against Tesla in December 2024, demanding contract cancellation and refunds on the grounds that the company had violated its obligation to perform.

The first-instance court did not accept any of the owners' claims.

First, the court determined that the supervised Full Self-Driving option purchased by the owners, the FSD function, does not mean Level 5 autonomous driving, which is the fully automated level capable of driving without a driver.

The court ruled that "the FSD option purchase contract is an indefinite-term contract to provide the relevant function when regulatory approval and technological advancement are achieved," noting that this includes partial automation requiring driver intervention, along with so-called basic Autopilot (AP) features such as lane keeping, and Enhanced Autopilot (EAP) features such as Summon and Autopark.

The court concluded that it cannot be seen as Tesla having made contract performance impossible simply because the Level 5 autonomous driving feature has not yet been provided.

The court also stated, "The FSD option purchased by the plaintiffs means that it can be applied to the relevant Tesla vehicle hardware 3.0, and it cannot be considered a failure of performance regarding the purchased option simply because they did not receive the exact same version of the FSD option implemented in hardware 4.0."

Furthermore, the court ruled, "Given that the plaintiffs received Enhanced Autopilot features such as lane keeping and automatic parking at the time of purchasing the FSD option, and purchased the option even while considering that it could take a considerable amount of time for additional features to be released, Tesla cannot be held responsible even if the provision of functions was delayed, as it was to comply with domestic and international regulations and related laws."

Citing the fact that the owners have already been provided with some functions and remain in a position to receive additional features to be developed in the future, the court did not recognize Tesla's liability for defects.

(Reported by Kwon Min-kyu | Video Editing by Kim Kyeong-yeon | Produced by SBS Digital News)