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have surfaced about
Tesla designing its odometers to read faster - to accrue mileage faster - in order (per the allegations) to get the cars past warranty faster. So that Tesla does not have to pay for warranty covered repairs.A class-action lawsuit -
Hinton v. Tesla - has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The chief plaintiff, Nyree Hinton, claims that rather than registering actual miles driven,
Tesla vehicles register odometer readings based on "predictive algorithms" tied to energy consumption. Hinton claims the odometer in his 2020 Model Y read "at least 15 percent fast," according to an MSNB news story about the lawsuit. He claims that his daily drive of
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about 20 miles often accrued 70 miles of driving on the odometer, resulting in his Model Y accruing more than 50,000 miles sooner than it otherwise would have and being out-of-warranty sooner than it would have, leaving him to foot a $10,000 bill for repairs that would have been covered under warranty.
If the allegations are true, it's pretty bad - for Tesla. The possibility of not just a wholesale recall/buyback scenario looms but also catastrophic reputational damage that may not be fixable. Tesla is already on the outs with its core buyer demographic for political reasons; it may soon be on the outs for more traditional reasons. No one likes being gypped.
The word is apt because this probably isn't a case of something inadvertent but rather, deliberate. As in purposeful fraud.And in more than just one way.
Comment: One wonders about the correlation between baptism rates dramatically going up and the rise of populist political groups in Europe.