Tesla odometer uses “predictive algorithms” to void warranty, lawsuit claims

Comments

• mannycalavera@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s far more likely that the odometer in Teslas are just poor quality crap like the rest of the car.

  source

  • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • hddsx@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’ll bite, what is the evidence that Tesla knowingly lied about battery range?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Makes the range look longer, also.

      source
  • someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Odometers are one of the oldest consumer protection tools. If it’s off, it’s wildly illegal.

    source

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    That cant be a defense?!

    source

    • knightly@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      When accused of crimes, deflect by admitting to even bigger crimes.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • Orygin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source
    • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Sorry officer, I’m just really stupid.

      source
    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.”

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source
  • ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

    source
  • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    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.

    source
• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The speedometer is also predictive.

  Image

  source

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You know this is fake cause it’s not on garbage touchscreen

    source
  • KreekyBonez@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    appropriate how 88 lines up on the dial…

    source

    • BenjiRenji@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That’s when you travel back in time to when things were still alright.

      source
  • InverseParallax@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    All the way to Warsaw in one tank.

    source
  • Klear@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Is it accurate though? Your mileage may vary.

    source
  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    it gets stuck at 45 convenently

    source
• Wimster@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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.

  source
• Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Good thing we have the CFPB to register and punish companies for shady practices like th…oh, nevermind.

  source

  • easily3667@lemmus.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Wrong gutted regulator

    source

    • lb_o@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Or intentionally?

      source
• Geodad@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  “Tesla commits fraud to void warranties.”

  There FTFY.

  source
• gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Just literal fraud

  source

  • sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    by Tesla?? I’m shocked

    source

    • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Shocked I say!!!

      source
• Mac@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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.

  source

  • Decq@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yeah aeems a pretty useless edit for an obvious fact. Especially as in this case you would need tires twice the circumstance of the original to make sense… Gotta be some huge tires…

    source

    • TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Hey Siri how do I convert from inches to circumstance

      source
  • TanteRegenbogen@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Yeah for the odo to do that, you need to put golf cart wheels on a Tesla.

    source
• xia@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  odometer += sensor * this_is_just_for_debugging_i_promise(odometer);
  

  source
• sexy_peach@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  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

  source

  • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Maybe multiplying each driven distance by the number of owners? I wouldn’t put it beyond them if they code that crap with AI.

    source
  • Auntievenim@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • billiam0202@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      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.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    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.

    source
• starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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?

  source

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    112 km a day, not a bad commute by Toronto standards - it’s one way for the Barrie to Toronto drivers

    source

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Sure, but it’s an additional 70 miles. Not something that would go unnoticed.

      source
  • AntY@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Or about 11 swedish miles per day.

    source

    • smeenz@lemmy.nz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      What’s that in Ikea meatballs?

      source
    • vandsjov@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      What Swedish mile?

      en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_mile

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• Fades@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Add this to the pile of the rest of the illegal things billionaire Musk does simply because he can

  source

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Better or worse than rape-via-twitter? Better, I guess.

    source
• resipsaloquitur@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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.

  source

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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’s probably a player right?

    source

    • resipsaloquitur@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Because he was born rich and failed up his entire life?

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• nomecks@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  You can’t change the tire size on a Model Y very much because of the weird suspension design.

  source

  • cmlael67@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Plus, to double the mileage registered by using different size tires, you’d have to put a roughly 10" tire on a Model Y.

    source
• MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  A odometer is a smell sensor, no?

  source

  • jaemo@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They don’t install those in new cars, you need one made in the ol’factory.

    source
  • jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How silly, it’s obvious that would be an odormeter. An odometer is about something else entirely. Image

    source

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Obviously!

      source
  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    That’s a smellometer!

    source

    • zqps@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Let’s use the Smelloscope!

      source
  • exchange12rocks@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    No

    source

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      But odor!

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• Jaysyn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  That’s sooo many individual felonies.

  Yet another reason for Elon to wreck all the agencies investigating him.

  source

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    he said he was afraid to go to jail if harris won.

    source
• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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.

  source

  • orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    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.

    source

    • twice_hatch@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      If the courts cared for the rights of people they would subpoena code routinely

      We can’t be ruled by black boxes that serve people who hate us. It has to end

      source
    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There’s got to be a git repository out there that has a smoking gun in its history…

      source
• invertedspear@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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.

  source
• zlatko@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  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”.

  source
• Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  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 is bad.

  source
• UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Has anyone compared it to a GPS?

  source
• Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Well I’m curious to find out what discovery will show.

  source
• Eddbopkins@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Wow that’s a scummy thing to do. Just like apple I will never buy a Tesla product.

  source
• jjjalljs@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Feels like they should be able to view the software and hardware controlling the odometer, and if it’s doing anything suspicious.

  I wonder if they’ll actually do anything if they find Tesla is doing fraud. Feel like everyone who OK’d the decision should be barred from working in the industry for life, and made to forfeit everything they gained while doing the fraud.

  While I’m making magical wishes, I’d also like Musk and all of his followers to choke to death.

  source
• homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Like they can’t even be competent enough to hire a hitman to kill their whistleblowers. Boeing are just laughing at them.

  source
• Widdershins@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It is weird that he probably saw Danny DeVito rolling back the odometers in Matilda while in a K hole and misconstrued the whole situation. That scene of Danny with the drill taking thousands of miles off an old beater probably seemed like a jackpot idea in that drug addled mind of his.

  source
• catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It cannot possibly be legal to have the odometer show anything except actual miles traveled.

  source
• cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Tesla? Muskrat? Engaged in fraud‽‽

  Well I am just shocked, SHOCKED…well, not that shocked

  source
• mooncake@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Teslas are nothing more than heaps of junk, I just laugh at anyone driving a Tesla

  source
• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Hinton’s lawsuit alleges that Tesla “employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage traveled by Tesla Vehicles” and that his car “consistently exhibited accelerated mileage accumulations of varying percentages ranging from 15 percent to 117 percent higher than plaintiff’s other vehicles and his driving history.”

  Here comes Big Government, trying to constrain cutting edge innovations in accurately counting how many times the wheel rotates.

  I hope DOGE is able to save California from itself by defunding whatever court system might be involved in persecuting hard working odometer engineers with this flagrantly Woke and Soy legal case.

  source
• RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Wow Teslas are even shittier than I ever imagined.

  source