According to auto outlet Electrek, numerous Tesla car owners accuse the company of secretly revising early FSD purchase contracts by adding a mandatory human supervision clause to deals signed from 2016 to early 2024, while blocking online access to original legal documents, hindering customer refund rights amid multiple high-value class-action lawsuits across the US.

Many users report FSD-related order agreements return 403 access errors on Tesla’s owner portal, whereas all other non-FSD purchase documents open normally. For instance, one vehicle owner bought FSD separately for his 2019 Model 3 and 2020 Model Y; no human oversight requirement was written into original contracts at purchase, yet the original agreements are now inaccessible for legal claims and refunds.

Between 2016 and early 2024, Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages for up to $15,000 (around 101,800 CNY). Elon Musk repeatedly promised over yearly announcements that factory-installed hardware would enable full unsupervised autonomy via over-the-air updates. The firm rebranded the product to “Supervised FSD” in March 2024 with mandatory driver monitoring rules added for the first time. In April 2026, Musk admitted all HW3-equipped legacy vehicles are permanently hardware-limited and can never achieve originally promised full self-driving, with no official retrofit plan available.

Apart from restricting original contract access, Tesla removed a 2016 official blog post claiming all new cars came with full self-driving hardware in August 2024, whose content is only retrievable via archive sites. Now Tesla faces global lawsuits with potential maximum claims of $14.5 billion (9.8435 billion CNY). California regulators ruled against Tesla’s misleading marketing previously, and one arbitration verdict forced Tesla to refund $10,600 (71,959 CNY) to an affected customer. Related litigations are also underway in Europe and China, and the hidden contract revision significantly escalates Tesla’s legal liabilities.