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A new class action lawsuit says some Tesla batteries are defective and claims the company deceives consumers about their capacity to avoid having to replace them under warranty.
Onboard computer software purportedly measures the car’s battery life constantly and displays the current level in a dashboard indicator, but at least one owner alleges the system is rigged to indicate more power is available than the Tesla batteries actually have. The result is that owners are unaware their batteries might be defective because they are led to believe the units are better performing than they are, the class action lawsuit says.
That means fewer owners are demanding replacement batteries under warranty, which is saving the car company money, according to the plaintiff.
Tesla owner Robert Fish of California says he noticed his car’s battery draining much more quickly after several years in operation and contacted a Tesla service technician for advice. The technician told him to focus on the car’s battery capacity indicator and not the number of miles he was able to travel on a charge.
Fish says the problem persisted and he again contacted a Tesla technician asking for a replacement battery for his 2014 Tesla Model S 85.
The technician “allegedly performed a remote ‘battery health check’ and determined there were no issues,” Fish says. The owner’s request for a replacement battery under warranty was denied.
Fish filed a class action lawsuit against Tesla Inc. in federal court in California on Jan. 12, accusing the company of fraud and violating federal warranty laws. He is seeking the court’s approval to represent a Class of “potentially hundreds of thousands of geographically disperse people,” who have also been denied replacement Tesla batteries under warranty.
“Tesla has a standard practice of using fraudulent and deceptive ‘battery health checks’ as a basis to deny warranty claims to replace defective batteries,” the class action lawsuit says. “Tesla has attempted to hide failing battery capacity, which necessarily occurs from age and use of Lithium Ion technology batteries, behind software updates.”
According to Fish, the car company has also manipulated the software to display inflated estimated driving ranges.
Those alleged actions “fooled [owners] into thinking that the losses they were experiencing in battery capacity were due to software updates instead of failing batteries.”
Problems with the allegedly defective Tesla batteries have been reported by owners and operators since at least 2019, the class action lawsuit claims. Many complaints have been posted on popular car websites, including the Tesla Motors Club online forum.
The Fish class action lawsuit cites numerous posted complaints about sudden, significant loss of capacity in Tesla batteries.
“All or substantially all of Tesla’s vehicles sold with Lithium Ion batteries, as well as those sold in the future, are subject to having the same sort of problems with reduced battery capacity as [the plaintiff’s],” the class action lawsuit argues.
Have you noticed a significant decrease in the range of travel your Tesla battery supports? Has the automaker refused to replace your battery under warranty? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Lead plaintiff Fish and the proposed Class Members are represented by John van Loben Sels, Jennifer J. Shih and Matthew J.C. Lusich of Fish IP Law LLP.
The Tesla Batteries Class Action Lawsuit is Robert Fish, et al. v. Tesla Inc., Case No. 8:21-cv-00060, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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23 thoughts onTesla Batteries Defective, System Overstates Capacity, Class Action Lawsuit Claims
I am having this exact experience with my Model S 60 model year 2017.