By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -Tesla must face a certified class action by California drivers who said Elon Musk misled them for eight years about the self-driving capabilities of his company’s electric vehicles.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the common question of whether Tesla lacked sensors to achieve high-level autonomy plus its inability to “demonstrate a long-distance autonomous drive with any of its vehicles” justified group lawsuits by two sets of drivers who bought its Full Self-Driving technology package.

In her decision on Monday, the San Francisco-based judge also said thousands of people likely saw Tesla’s claim in the “Autopilot” section of its website from October 2016 to August 2024 that its vehicles contained hardware for full self-driving.

Tesla made a similar cla

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