The American automaker Tesla achieved a settlement this Monday with 126 Norwegian customers. The lawsuit started because the buyers felt the Tesla’s Model S P85D was not what the company showed and promised to the public.
Lawyers from both sides announced that they presented a joint letter to the Oslo District Court in order to withdraw the case. The formal lawsuit was set to start on Monday, according to a spokesperson from the court.
A lawyer from the Norwegian firm Wikborg Rein was the person who informed Reuters that both sides achieved the settlement in the past days. The lawyer, named Kaspar Nygaard Thommessen, was the official representative of the customers.
Although Thommessen didn’t give any more details to the news agency, the local newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv announced on Sunday that every car owner was going to receive 65,000 Norwegian crowns, that represents about $7,700.
This amount of money is almost half of what the customers were asking for in the first place. The newspaper also announced that “most of the 126 Tesla owners” accepted the settlement. However, there are about 1,200 Tesla’s Model S P85D owners registered in Norway at the moment.
Tesla also offered a series of car upgrades for the owners, to satisfy their demands. The updates option embraces the “Ludicrous battery upgrade,” a set of wheels, and Tesla store credits.
Tesla Electric Cars
The settlement marks the end of the 2-year dispute between Tesla and the Norwegian customers. The lawsuit itself started because the owners felt deceived regarding the marketing promises that the company offered to the public, especially those related to horsepower.
Tesla listed the power of their S P85D model in a way the buyers felt cheated. When the automaker presented the car to the market, they announced that the model was going to have a combined motor output of 691 hp. The first motor in the back was supposed to contribute with 467 hp and the second motor in the front with 224 hp.
While technically there is no misleading information, the model itself was not able to reach the power presented in the car’s features. This because other limitations that affected the motor performance, for example, the type of battery the car used.
“Testing done by Tesla and independent third parties has demonstrated that the Model S P85D’s acceleration and motor power numbers have always been accurate, even understated,” a Tesla spokesperson told Electrek earlier this year.
This S P85D model is no longer available in Norway, and the registration of cars from that brand in the country has decayed 24 percent, comparing the first eleven months from both 2015 and 2016. Norway is one of the largest markets for electric cars in the worlds. This because the government has implemented several subsidies toward the electrification of the local transportation in the past years.
Source: Reuters