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.
Why is proprietary in devices we purchase bad? This right here. We are connected to the internet 24/7. Companies hiding what they control and what they collect, which is bad.
It’s far more likely that the odometer in Teslas are just poor quality crap like the rest of the car.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Makes the range look longer, also.
That cant be a defense?!
When accused of crimes, deflect by admitting to even bigger crimes.
They cancel out
I have the worst fucking attorneys
Double it and give it to the next defendant!
For Trump justice is indeed ike playing Uno
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.
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.
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.
Would most people notice that? Would they say something if they did? If this particular warranty is mileage based, I’d keep my mouth shut if mine was abnormally low. It’s not like it’s something that affects the functioning of the car, and has other potential advantages like higher resale value.
And even if you said something, who is going to report on it? This is news because it’s gone to court. You’re not going to try to take them to court for it being low. At best you’ll just try to get it fixed.
I’m not saying this isn’t something they would do, I just don’t necessarily think we’d definitely see reports of it being low, even if it was happening.
If they were actually doing this, and actually being smart about it though, they’d have it go over at a rate of say, 30% of cars, and under at a rate of like 10% of cars so they’d still come out on top but actually have it seem to be randomly faulty.
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
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.
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.
The speedometer is also predictive.
You know this is fake cause it’s not on garbage touchscreen
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.
From Berlin to Warsaw in one tank.
it gets stuck at 45 convenently
Just literal fraud
by Tesla?? I’m shocked
Shocked I say!!!
“Tesla commits fraud to void warranties.”
There FTFY.
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.
If you don’t have an especially long commute, good chance you’re between 12k to 15k per year. That’s a typical yearly amount, and leases are usually set around there.
13k in six months is about twice the average.
Just did some math and surprisingly it’s actually a lot less! But I’m lucky in that I don’t have a particularly notable, regular commute. Looks I’m averaging about 5k/yr
Maybe multiplying each driven distance by the number of owners? I wouldn’t put it beyond them if they code that crap with AI.
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.
Oh perfect, that means I can resell this Tesla I’ve been using and abusing for dyno testing and other stationary things as having 0 miles driven! /s
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.
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.
In the past, Tesla lawyers even initiated lawsuits against customers who dared to criticize the quality of their cars or services. Such cases are documented and therefore not fake news. Last week, moreover, DOGE dismantled the department responsible for safety control and approval of new cars entering the market. Tesla experienced too many problems with this department in the past and now, through DOGE, took the opportunity to simply dismantle it. Moral of the story… buy a Tesla, a “safe” decision.
You mean the guy that thinks we live in a simulation and he’s the player and we are all NPCs is cheating to give himself an advantage? I’m shocked.
Hah, I’m not convinced that interpretation is wrong. It’s weird how influential he’s been on the world, right?
I mean if this is that sort of simulation, he’d probably be a player right? I know that as I get to the end of games, I get all the currency I’ll ever need, I have all the best items, and the whole game becomes easy, that’s about when I start becoming an asshole, testing the boundaries. Like “can I just kill this character? I’m gonna shoot them, just to see what happens. lol, the guards didn’t like that much, look at em running around… I’ll shoot them too”.
I think that’s where Elon is right now, just being an enormous asshole just to see what happens. That’s some gamer ass behavior right there!
Because he was born rich and failed up his entire life?
That’s true, but there are a lot of those people in the world, tens of thousands. Where are all of them in the news? He seems different in some way, right? Do you even know the name of the CEO of Hasbro or Ford or CocaCola? I bet they’re rich, I bet they grew up rich…
They’re smart enough to stay out of the spotlight and Elon isn’t.
Though Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, has a podcast. So perhaps not the best example.
So you think the main difference between Elon and other rich people is that other rich people keep a low profile?
So does that mean you think that other ultra wealthy people are just as influential (and damaging to the world) as Elon? Because I don’t doubt that the ultra wealthy are problematic in general, but I think Elon is worse, like in a big way. And he’s been changing a lot in the world for the last 20 years, like a lot more than literally anyone I can think of.
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.
Good thing we have the CFPB to register and punish companies for shady practices like th…oh, nevermind.
Wrong gutted regulator
Or intentionally?
That’s sooo many individual felonies.
Yet another reason for Elon to wreck all the agencies investigating him.
he said he was afraid to go to jail if harris won.
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.
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.
What Swedish mile?
The unity mile, of course. It’s 10,688.54 m.
What’s that in Ikea meatballs?
Really needs to back this up with some corroborating evidence like Google maps location timeline or something. I don’t trust Tesla, but I also know when I switched to EV I started making excuses to drive everywhere. Practically free miles and great acceleration made driving a joy again. Also my wife and I would often swap vehicles if she had some errand across town to save on gas. Combined that out way more miles in my EV than I had been putting on the previous gas car.
If all this guy did is commute, then he likely has a case, but I really question that.
Now now. There is a time to present that data, and that time is discovery, which has not yet begun.
I know you want to judge the case now, but the legal system insists that you wait until the proper time, when both sides are gathering evidence and sharing it with each other.
Yeah I’ll be honest, I surprised myself when I bought my EV and my odometer went up a whole lot faster than it used to
My previous car wasn’t easy on gas so I instinctively used it sparingly. With my EV I actually do drive a lot more and I’m volunteering to be the driver for group trips and stuff much more often…
Has anyone compared it to a GPS?
Just fit your own dashcam. Some models have GPS logging so you can track where it is every second of driving.
Another way would be to log OBDII metrics, and compare the vehicle speed, odometer and time. If you don’t get s=d/t then something is up.
The dash cam would work. I wouldn’t trust obd because they could be sending the same info through or doing some VW diesel gate stuff. Maybe comparing obd to waze to what’s displayed on screen would be better. When I mount different size tires on my vehicles I use waze to compare the speed on the speedometer vs waze. Most vehicles in the past read faster than it was going, it’s only in the past few years I’ve seen them being more accurate, around when telemetry started being more prevalent.
I tested my car and the speedometer, trip meter and OBD give 3 completely different values. It’s kind of expected because all manufacturers make overreading speedometers.
I think comparing trip meter/odometer, OBD and GPS is the way to go. It would be amusing if Teslas are programmed to behave when something is monitoring it over OBD.
