Three Tesla owners across the United States have sued the California automaker—saying that some of the main safety features that they expected to have when they purchased their cars in late 2016 are "vaporware." They accuse Tesla of fraud and deceptive trade practices, among other allegations.

In the proposed class-action lawsuit , which was filed in federal court in California on Wednesday, attorneys representing the trio of men argue that "Tesla has not released truly functional software for its Standard Safety Features or Enhanced Autopilot." (That new software package is known as AP2 .)

In one example, a Colorado man, Dean Sheikh, bought a Tesla S 60D in late November, picking it up just over two weeks later.

According to the lawsuit, Sheikh not only believed that he would imminently be receiving a new software update to enable the "Enhanced Autopilot" feature, but that it would also include the activation of other safety features that commonly exist on many other cars, including Automatic Emergency Braking.

"Dean had no intention to buy a car that does not have AEB; it was standard on his prior Audi A7 and was a 'must have' on Dean’s feature list for a new car," the complaint states.

In February 2017, Sheikh did receive an over-the-air update, but he said that once he turned it on:

…the system operated in an unpredictable manner, sometimes veering out of lanes, lurching, slamming on the brakes for no reason, and failing to slow or stop when approaching other vehicles and obstacles. This rendered the Autopilot system unsafe to operate. The suite of Standard Safety Features that Dean was promised remain inoperable, including Automatic Emergency Braking, side collision warnings, auto-wipers, and auto high beams. … The Enhanced Autopilot Features are simply too dangerous to be used, and are therefore, completely useless notwithstanding the $5,000 premium that Dean paid for Enhanced Autopilot.

The two other plaintiffs offered similar claims.

“Inaccurate”

A Tesla spokesperson sent Ars a corporate statement that dismissed the lawsuit as a "disingenuous attempt to secure attorney’s fees posing as a legitimate legal action, which is evidenced by the fact that the suit misrepresents many facts."

The statement goes on to explain that the Enhanced Autopilot software "is a product that would roll out incrementally over time."

It ends with this line: "The inaccurate and sensationalistic view of our technology put forth by this group is exactly the kind of misinformation that threatens to harm consumer safety."

It remains unclear exactly how many Teslas currently on the road have the latest self-driving hardware sensors (HW2) and the AP2 software. When Ars tested a Model S P100Ds in February 2017, the Autopilot functionality was disabled.

Tesla did not respond to Ars’ question as to whether this software had been rolled out to all Teslas everywhere, and if not, why not.