Tesla will have to compensate users for software limited batteries

Tesla will have to compensate users for software limited batteries

The class action involving Tesla and the owners of Model S and Model X with limited batteries via software is about to reach its happy conclusion (in the USA, while in Norway it goes on). The Californian house has agreed to compensate all the more than 1,700 members of the lawsuit with the sum of over 600 Dollars each, which brings the total to over one million and a half Dollars (once the legal fees are added, also borne by Tesla). But it is not certain that there will be further surprises, given that the last word in the closing of the proceedings will be written in December.

The matter emerged about two years ago after some reports, and relative bad publicity, on old Tesla models that had caught fire. A not-so-uncommon problem in electric cars, looking at the chaos the Chevrolet Bolt went through recently. But in the case of the Model S and X affected by possible fires, the parent company chose to activate an update without notifying users about all the changes made. The latter significantly limited the charge of the batteries by cutting the total autonomy of the cars. Not only that: it caused (despite the lower amount of energy needed) an increase in recharge times at the Superchargers.

To worsen the situation, and to cause the start of the class action, there was the attitude not really transparent to users who complained of such problems. Tesla in fact denied any "deterioration" of the batteries and defined the upgrade as a necessary step to increase their duration. Not offering any alternatives, as it could have been to uninstall the latest update. Only later, after the initiation of the lawsuit, did it restore the battery capacity as it was before the updates dated 2019.

According to the latest documents filed in the San Francisco court, in addition to the reimbursements Tesla will have to maintain a constant communication service about the batteries. This includes the timely reporting of any interventions, possible changes to the management software and so on. Basically, everything he should have done before the discord update came.