A group of Tesla owners filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing them of misleading mileage range projections in their advertisements for electric vehicles.
The lawsuit, seeking class-action status, demands monetary damages and a court order to prevent Tesla from misleading customers about the estimated range of their vehicles.
The lawsuit argues that Tesla intentionally exaggerated the range of their electric vehicles to increase sales numbers.
Tesla has not responded to the request for comment, as the company stopped responding to press inquiries last year.
In January, South Korean regulators fined Tesla $2.2 million for inflating the range of their vehicles in cold weather.
Last week, Reuters published an investigation revealing that Tesla employees were instructed to ignore customer complaints about poor driving range. The company created a secret team to cancel customer appointments related to battery range.
The lawsuit accuses CEO Elon Musk of directly ordering the use of optimistic algorithms that show inaccurate driving range estimates.
Experts verified Reuters’ findings about Tesla’s exaggerated driving ranges and battery projections.
The lawsuit argues that if customers had known the true range of Tesla vehicles, they would not have purchased them or would have paid less.
Tesla is known for having the best EV driving range among consumer automakers. Car and Driver listed four Tesla vehicles in their Top 10 longest-range electric cars for 2023.
This lawsuit is the second legal action against Musk’s businesses in as many days. In addition to Tesla and SpaceX, Musk also owns Twitter, which was recently rebranded as “X”.
Agence France-Presse has sued Twitter in European court for using their news product on social media without compensation.
