Tesla is being sued for allegedly altering the readings on its own cars’ odometers. A class-action lawsuit filed in California claims that Tesla has been cooking the books, essentially making their vehicles think they’ve traveled more than they have in an alleged scam to bail on repair bills and cut warranty coverage short.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, Nyree Hinton, the owner of a used 2020 Tesla Model Y, noticed their car was logging way more miles than they were driving. When they bought the car, it had less than 37,000 miles on it. Within six months, it had surpassed 50,000 miles, thus surpassing the car’s bumper-to-bumper warranty.
Tesla Facing New Lawsuit
Hinton claims that with his three previous vehicles that he used on the same commute, he was only driving just over 6,000 miles every six months, and certainly not the 13,228 miles the Tesla odometer was claiming he had driven in six months.
Hinton’s lawsuit accuses Tesla of using algorithms based on “energy consumption” and “driver behavior” to fudge odometer data. In other words, if the claims are proven to be true, your Tesla might be secretly judging you and adding fake miles based on algorithmic assumptions and not the actual miles you’re driving.
All this comes at a time as Tesla sales are in a nosedive with nothing on the horizon to pull them out of it, investors are bailing on the company, and Elon Musk, the sad miserable billionaire dork at the heart of all of this, is gleefully shredding the government apart in way only a nihilistic Gen Xer who was only ever taught to destroy can. All the while, Teslas themselves are depreciating, and the Tesla aftermarket has cratered.
Lying about car stats is not new for Tesla. A 2023 Reuters investigation revealed that the company allegedly juiced the battery range projections, too, giving owners unrealistically optimistic dashboard readouts. Hm. Sounds familiar.
When people called to complain, Tesla had a literal “diversion team” to keep them busy with remote diagnostics that always seemed to end with: “Nope, your battery’s fine. Shut up.”
Whether this latest lawsuit goes anywhere or not, it’s abundantly clear that Tesla is going through some shit right now, pretty much all of it self-imposed by its manchild owner. If you’re a Tesla investor, at what point do you say enough is enough and try to get the alleged ketamine addict as far away from your investment portfolio as humanly possible?
