The lead plaintiff in the case, Nyree Hinton, bought a used Model Y with less than 37,000 miles (59,546 km) on the odometer. Within six months, it had pushed past the 50,000-mile (80,467 km) mark, at which point the car’s bumper-to-bumper warranty expired. (Like virtually all EVs, Tesla powertrains have a separate warranty that lasts much longer.)
For this six-month period, Hinton says his Model Y odometer gained 13,228 miles (21,288 km). By comparison, averages of his three previous vehicles showed that with the same commute, he was only driving 6,086 miles (9,794 km) per 6 months.
Edit: I just want to point out that I just learned that changing your tires to ones of a different diameter can also affect how your spedometer clocks. So yeah, this issue is full of nuance and plausible things as to why this could not be true.
Good thing we have the CFPB to register and punish companies for shady practices like th…oh, nevermind.
odometer += sensor * this_is_just_for_debugging_i_promise(odometer);It’s far more likely that the odometer in Teslas are just poor quality crap like the rest of the car.
We already know they knowingly lied about battery range, the capabilities of self driving, and a ton of other fraudulent practices. Tesla is doing it intentionally is more likely than poor build quality.
In fact I believe the odometer reading is calculated from the electricty consumption, not from a meter in the gearbox. So if the range reading is inaccurate (and they are) it would throw out the mileage as well.
Should be super easy to prove too… Take an assortment of Teslas to a 1 mile stretch of road, drive it up and down 20 times, measure the mileage before and after.
Not necessarily, the incorrect readings may only occur at certain speeds or conditions.
That would make no sense. There has to be something spinning connected to something rolling in the ground.
All the AC motors have some kind of encoder to control rotation (and can easily be used to count rotations as well). But if Xitter and Doge have taught us anything, it’s that the programmers for Musks companies more not be very competent.
Apparently its based on the field rotations in the motor or something, remember this is a fixed gear vehicle. I don’t think ICE cars use a gear either anymore, its based on the crankshaft sensor for the EFI, multipled by a gear ratio figure in the ECU. Even pushbikes don’t have gear sensors for speedo reading, they count magnetic fluctuations in the rim.
I’ll bite, what is the evidence that Tesla knowingly lied about battery range?
Ah okay this makes more sense. With all electric driving ranges the EPA/CARB more pessimistic than, say, WLTP. The probable place that could be gamed in determining this range, to my knowledge, is to shut off anything that might require more power (ie. AC).
However, if the range estimated in the software for the dashboard does not match reality, that is indeed the fault of Tesla
Makes the range look longer, also.
Odometers are one of the oldest consumer protection tools. If it’s off, it’s very illegal.
Yup, odometers were regulated specifically to protect consumers from widespread odometer fraud. Shit like companies requiring oil changes every 5k miles, and the odometer shows 5000 when it’s actually only 4000, so consumers pay for more service than they need. Or cases like this one, where a company is required to provide a warranty until the 50k odometer reading, and then fudges the odometer so it voids the warranty sooner than it should.
Used to be the other way around, undercount the miles so that you can sell it at a higher price.
I wonder how sophisticated this fraud is? They could have it rush to 50k, and then “catch up” by running more slowly for the next few 10s of thousands to cover the tracks.
Double dick move by tesla, shorten the warranty period, and lower the resale value! INNOVATIVE!
thats why you never hear people buying a used one, too defective.
That cant be a defense?!
I mean, VW tried to blame poor quality software (aka a bug) for their abnormal emissions, before it was discovered it’s fully intended to cheat emissions testing.
I wouldn’t put it above Tesla to do the same here.Sorry officer, I’m just really stupid.
Sure, but if you apply hanlon’s razor whenever it’s applicable, you’re right more often.
“never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
It can definitely be both. Trump is exhibit A. Its never enough for them to get what they want, it has to hurt the other person or party on the other end of any interaction. They are thoroughly malicious and stupid
Nah fuck hanlons razor. Evil people can be stupid but they are still evil. If the incompetence reaches this point it is also malice.
I’m not saying both aren’t possible. And I’m not saying both don’t apply here.
But in general, if you make it a practice to remember Hanlon’s razor, you will be both correct more often and generally happier. I’m just suggesting, do it for your own sake. Assume the best of intentions in people, because usually people do mean well. And also expect them to let you down by making genuinely stupid choices, because then you won’t be surprised when they do.
I assume the best intentions of people that haven’t repeatedly proven that they do not have the best of intentions. Telsa has repeatedly shown that they are willing to break the law to accomplish something they want and this isn’t a huge step farther all things considered.
Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system.
No, it isn’t. Tesla’s past behavior shows that they would definitely try to do this, because they would make a lot of money. And if the odometers were “randomly” poor quality, why would we only see reports of mileage being mistakenly high? Where are the mistaken low reports? Haven’t seen any of those.
Sure, but then you’d also expect to hear about Teslas with odometers that massively underreport the distance, too. Or that fail altogether. And while no one would be likely to report the former, the latter might be a bigger deal.
Under-reporting mileage is an issue because you won’t get the recommended oil checks at the right times, which will shorten your engine life. And it would be generally concerning to the owner, right? We really do assume the odometer is mostly accurate when we’re going on trips.
So I think people would be reporting it if it were happening, but they aren’t, so it’s probably not. Of course this is speculation.
Ah yes, the recommended oil checks on a famously electric vehicle. /s
I get what you’re saying, but more likely is that nobody would ever notice. Which also seems unlikely, since we’re quite an oversharing culture.
Had a Tesla Model 3 before, have a VW ID.7 now. They’re driven the same and it looks like they both agree about the distances driven.
FWIW
Even more likely there is a bug ticket in thier system that says some part is malfunctioning causing the odometer to count too fast. And that ticket has been depriortized by product management repeatedly as fixing it generates no increase in revenue.
all the models have defects, it just nobody complained enough that the news picked on it. i remmeber on reddit, some fanboy bought one for 140k or something around the time twitter was bought, everyone was quesitoning why he bought it at a volatile time.
Changing your tire sizing only changes the speedo and odo a few percent. You can usually just ignore it unless you’re making drastic changes.
Yeah aeems a pretty useless edit for an obvious fact. Especially as in this case you would need tires half the circumference of the original to make sense… Gotta be some tiny tires…
Edit, had it the wrong way around
Hey Siri how do I convert from inches to circumstance
Yeah for the odo to do that, you need to put golf cart wheels on a Tesla.
The speedometer is also predictive.
You know this is fake cause it’s not on garbage touchscreen
From Berlin to Warsaw in one tank.
appropriate how 88 lines up on the dial…
That’s when you travel back in time to when things were still alright.
Is it accurate though? Your mileage may vary.
it gets stuck at 45 convenently
Well, true, but tyres wouldn’t make it a double distance, it’s not that simple. The case isn’t clear, if course, but the claim says that the odometer tried to reduce the range after it got out of the warranty period.
Not saying anything about the merit of the case, just the the claim itself sounds interesting and that if true, you can’t wave it away with “you changed tyres”.
“Tesla commits fraud to void warranties.”
There FTFY.
That’s 70 miles a day, for anyone who doesn’t want to do the math. I don’t know where Hinton lives, but that’s almost two laps around all of the highways surrounding the city I live in. That’s 2 hours of driving on surface roads, not including stop lights and stop signs.
I wonder how much money Tesla has saved by breaking the law this way?
112 km a day, not a bad commute by Toronto standards - it’s one way for the Barrie to Toronto drivers
Sure, but it’s an additional 70 miles. Not something that would go unnoticed.
Or about 11 swedish miles per day.
A odometer is a smell sensor, no?
They don’t install those in new cars, you need one made in the ol’factory.
How silly, it’s obvious that would be an odormeter. An odometer is about something else entirely.
Obviously!
That’s a smellometer!
Let’s use the Smelloscope!
No
But odor!
Hodor
deleted by creator
Just literal fraud
by Tesla?? I’m shocked
Shocked I say!!!
Add this to the pile of the rest of the illegal things billionaire Musk does simply because he can
Better or worse than rape-via-twitter? Better, I guess.
Well I’m curious to find out what discovery will show.
For this six-month period, Hinton says his Model Y odometer gained 13,228 miles (21,288 km). By comparison, averages of his three previous vehicles showed that with the same commute, he was only driving 6,086 miles (9,794 km) per 6 months.
That’s 2x. Seems too obvious to be happening on all teslas
I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you my average monthly usage. I could definitely look at my oil change rate and work backwards, but it’s not just something I regularly think about or keep at the top of my mind. I’m sure plenty of people haven’t noticed it.
I couldn’t tell you my average monthly usage.
Open up your Google Maps (or navigation app of choice) and you’ll likely have a record of how far you’ve traveled within a given time period.
Subtract off any cab rides and rides in friends’ cars, and that’s your number plus or minus some distance in driveways or parking garages that the app can’t accurately measure.
I don’t use Google maps. Anyway like I said I can go off oil changes more or less to get a decent estimate. Of course I could also just take the age of my car and it’s total miles and divide.
Sure. But then you’re still relying on an accurate odometer. I assumed the question was how you do it when disputing one.
In the case of the article, the plaintiff is using prior vehicle mileage rates as countervailing evidence.
lol duh you’re right I definitely just kind of forgot the entire context for this discussion
The plaintiff is using that as one piece evidence right now at the start of the case. Of course they can and will gather and present other evidence.
Obviously UK consumer protection is different so they may not have the “feature” here, but cars get their milage recorded yearly (after the first 3 years) as part of roadworthiness testing, available online given the licence plate, so I can see I did 7041 miles in the last year.
Does the DMV not have something similar?
I imagine if I looked at the registration of the car it would have that information yes.
The important bit in the article was that he had bought it used. I’m sure its not a standard feature for brand new Tesla, but I would absolutely believe that some kind of fuckery to keep pre-owned buyers from taking advantage of the warranty is SOP. It’s counting double the miles, there’s no possible way for that to happen on accident unless the odometer is completely independent of the cars systems.
I’m pretty sure old odometers literally spun according to the wheels turning as you drove. If Tesla is “calculating” mileage then they would absolutely be able to just inject commands to ignore the correct algorithm and make it hit 50k as fast as possible. I’m sure most of the people they did this to weren’t keen eyed enough to notice.
Certainly not all Tesla, just the ones they think they can get away with. 38k miles is not very far from 50k, they assumed he would be a rube and just suck it up when they told him his warranty was invalid.
It would absolutely not surprise me if Teslas calculate miles driven via GPS instead of tire rotation or some other mechanical means.
It’s the kind of “reinventing the wheel, only worse and more expensive” that Musk would do.
I really doubt it, a lot of people would notice their odometer doing twice the work it should be doing.
I think the most likely explanation is someone wrote down the wrong value.
You would think, but this guy didn’t lmao
One person sure, but then they found lawyers who almost certainly asked for more information. So maybe your explanation is not the most likely.
If it’s his lawyers, they’ll take your money on the most ridiculous things.
Maybe multiplying each driven distance by the number of owners? I wouldn’t put it beyond them if they code that crap with AI.
I definitely lean toward this being genuine manufacturing error (or user error).
That said? Never underestimate the power of market research. I was just chatting with a friend about how neither of us understand cars beyond the most basic of emergency maintenance and I could 100% see a predatory system target us (moreso than the ones we know target us).
Similarly, I would assume most former grad students are used to actually monitoring mileage because we are trying to push our crap for as long as we can. Whereas someone who has been a tech bro for a decade probably expects to buy a new car every time they get a bonus and wouldn’t care.
That said? Assuming this IS fraud on tesla’s part (and that is generally a safe assumption), my money is on something like:
The odometer nudging is designed to make sure everyone hits their mileage based warranty after N years. Every M months it will estimate your average use and “nudge” you based on heuristics. Hinton had a particularly low mileage the period before so it scaled them much higher for the next period while they were monitoring it.
Should be super easy to prove too… Take an assortment of Teslas to a 1 mile stretch of road, drive it up and down 20 times, measure the mileage before and after.
Right, but Tesla has had time to push new code to their cars. So we could get a negative result now and still have past shadiness.
There’s got to be a git repository out there that has a smoking gun in its history…
Wow that’s a scummy thing to do. Just like apple I will never buy a Tesla product.
Apple’s odometers are fine.
Pedometers, you mean?
