Tesla HW3 claim grows to 7,000 owners, gets law firm backing for collective action | Electrek

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Tesla HW3 claim grows to 7,000 owners, gets law firm backing for collective action

Fred Lambert | Jun 18 2026 - 3:17 pm PT

25 Comments

The Dutch collective claim against Tesla over broken “Full Self-Driving” promises on Hardware 3 vehicles has reached nearly 7,000 verified participants and secured backing from law firm Kennedy Van der Laan for a formal legal action.

The initiative, which launched in April with 3,000 signups in its first week, is now preparing to transfer the case to a foundation that will pursue the claim on behalf of all participants under Dutch collective action law.

What the claim covers

The organizer behind HW3 Claim, Dutch Tesla owner Mischa Sigtermans, published a detailed update today laying out the full scope of the legal action. The claim targets two components of what Tesla owners paid for:

First, a portion of every pre-HW4 Tesla’s catalogue value is attributable to the promise that the hardware was “suitable for full self-driving.” This applies to every HW3 owner regardless of whether they purchased a separate FSD package. Second, owners who paid separately for the Full Self-Driving package — which cost up to €6,400 in the Netherlands — can claim a refund of that amount on top.<br>Advertisement - scroll for more content

The site now features a per-vehicle calculator that pulls registration data from the RDW (Dutch road authority) to give owners an indicative estimate of their potential claim. The claim argues that Tesla’s promise was tied to the car itself, and the RDW’s April 10, 2026 approval of FSD (Supervised) exclusively for HW4 hardware proves the promise cannot be fulfilled.

Kennedy Van der Laan and litigation funding

The case preparation is being supported by Kennedy Van der Laan, one of the Netherlands’ most respected law firms. A specialist litigation funder is also in talks to finance the action, meaning participants would pay nothing upfront — the funder assumes the financial risk and takes an agreed percentage of any proceeds if the case succeeds.

A foundation is being established to represent participants’ interests independently of the funder. Sigtermans will sit on the board to ensure participants’ interests come first. The structure mirrors other successful Dutch collective actions, which have proven effective against large multinationals.

RDW documents strengthen the case

Freedom of Information requests to the RDW have produced documents that directly undermine any argument that the regulator blocked HW3 approval. The documents show that Tesla itself applied for FSD type approval on November 5, 2024, defined the scope of that application, and designed the test setup — all exclusively for HW4 hardware.

The RDW set a condition requiring a test vehicle “with the appropriate specs (hardware […] or newer).” Those words confirm that a minimum hardware requirement applied and older hardware didn’t qualify. Critically, the RDW confirmed in writing on May 13, 2026 that HW3 was never submitted for assessment. There is no trace of an HW3 application, a rejection, or any appeal in the disclosed files.

This matters because Tesla has given owners the impression it “appealed” an HW3 refusal. The documents show that’s not the case — Tesla simply never tried to get HW3 approved.

Mounting pressure from multiple directions

The claim comes as Tesla faces scrutiny on multiple fronts. Reuters reported on June 15 that Tesla presented misleading FSD safety statistics to European regulators including the RDW. Ten of eleven road safety researchers consulted described the figures as misleading marketing, with safety overstated by roughly a factor of three.

Meanwhile, during its Q1 2026 earnings call, Tesla officially admitted HW3 cannot achieve unsupervised FSD, with Elon Musk citing “memory bandwidth” as the choke point — a limitation that existed from day one. Tesla is offering HW3 owners discounted trade-ins and hardware upgrades that require replacing both the computer and all cameras.

FSD (Supervised) has since launched in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, and Lithuania — always on HW4, never on HW3. Tesla’s own deployment pattern confirms that the working functionality requires hardware the company told owners they already had.

Electrek’s Take

This case has real teeth now. Going from a one-person initiative to nearly 7,000 participants with a respected law firm and litigation funding is exactly the kind of escalation that forces corporate attention.

Top comment by diglossia

Liked by 11 people

A guy who has a trillion bucks doesn't care about this, whether the class includes 7 people, 7,000, or 7 million. And that's the problem. Even a huge legal win won't change much about how Tesla runs its business.

View all comments

I also like that they are addressing...