Tesla has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice over fully automated driving.

The U.S. Department of Justice has requested documents from Tesla regarding Autopilot and "fully automated" driving capabilities, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released Tuesday.

In the filing, reported by several media outlets, Tesla confirmed that the DOJ had requested the documents but indicated that it did not anticipate prosecution.

"To the best of our knowledge, no government agency has concluded that any wrongdoing has occurred in the ongoing investigation," Tesla stated in the filing.

Tesla has come under fire repeatedly over the years for its driver assistance features, particularly "full self-driving," which, despite its name, does not allow the car to drive itself; in 2021, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called the label "misleading and irresponsible . and the state of California has ruled it illegal."

Autopilot is Tesla's standard driver assistance feature, essentially adaptive cruise control, which also allows for single-lane self-driving. Full self-driving" adds features such as the ability to automatically pass slower vehicles, automatically respond to traffic lights and stop signs, and handle some parking situations. Also included is Smart Summon, which allows a car to come to the driver in a parking lot as long as the driver has eyes on the car.

Tesla began offering "fully automated driving" as a hardware package in 2016, claiming that later software updates would unlock true self-driving capabilities. CEO Elon Musk predicted at the time that as early as 2017, a Tesla would be able to travel from Los Angeles to New York City "without ever touching the wheel".

That did not happen, but Tesla began offering the system as an unfinished "beta" version to all customers (it was initially only available to a select few) and has steadily raised the price: $5,000 at launch in 2016; Tesla plans to increase the price to $10,000 in 2020 dollars, to $12,000 in 2022, and finally to $15,000 in 2021, with a subscription option added in 2021.

Dissatisfied Tesla owners filed a class action lawsuit against Tesla in September 2022 for failing to deliver on its promise of "fully automated driving." Tesla's lawyers later reportedly sought to have the suit dismissed,