‘Defective’ EAVision J100 Agricultural Spray Drones Plagued by Malfunctions and Crashes, Class Action Suit Alleges

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that EAVision J100 agricultural spray drones suffer from design defects that impair the devices’ maneuverability and increase the likelihood of crashes, physical injury, and property damage.

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The 31-page lawsuit contends that although the EAVision J100 products are marketed as state-of-the-art agricultural spray drones with laser-based light detection and ranging technology (lidar), as well as capable of avoiding obstacles and following terrain, the products are unreasonably dangerous to people, livestock, crops, structures and equipment, and “were never made to operate as represented.”

Agricultural drones apply a fine mist of aerosolized crop treatments, including pesticides, fertilizers and fungicides, over terrain and have become an important tool for farmers, as they reduce the need for workers and machinery to enter treated fields and can disperse chemical treatments onto farmland on short notice and in areas that are otherwise difficult to access, the lawsuit explains.

However, despite marketing representations that the EAVision J100 spray drones provide “superior maneuverability” and can even avoid power lines, the filing alleges that the drones are plagued by, among other apparent defects, a lidar “blind spot” directly above and to the rear of the drone, subpar wiring harnesses and connectors that cause “excessive” vibrations, software bugs that reduce the drones’ maneuverability, motor failures, joystick malfunctions, and more.

Indeed, defendant Agri Spray Drones has effectively admitted that the drones do not perform as advertised on its J100 “Knowledge Hub, warning “DO NOT OPERATE J100 2 METERS OR CLOSER TO OBJECTS OR OBSTACLES,” in direct contradiction to the company’s marketing claims. Another article confirmed that certain drones had crashed into power lines because the upward field of view was “limited,” the class action lawsuit says.

The lawsuit relays that the plaintiffs purchased at least one J100 agricultural spray drone after reviewing marketing materials that touted the devices’ reliability and performance—in particular, their terrain-following and obstacle-avoidance capabilities—but the drones repeatedly malfunctioned, crashed, failed to spray, would not stop spraying and caught fire.

The filing says that the defective drones “narrowly missed” one of the plaintiffs’ employees, caused physical damage to the plaintiff’s equipment, structures and crops, and created a “substantial” risk of serious physical injury and property damage. Eventually, the plaintiffs were forced to hire an outside flying service to perform the field applications that the J100 drones could not perform, the lawsuit states.

The EAVision class action lawsuit seeks to cover all individuals and entities in the United States who purchased an EAVision J100 agricultural spray drone on or after December 1, 2024, when the J100 was launched in the United States, and continuing through the date of class certification.

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