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A Tesla owner filed a lawsuit against Tesla, claiming that Tesla limited the battery mileage of old models through software updates in order to avoid higher costs to recall cars and repair allegedly defective batteries, Reuters reported.

On Aug. 9, plaintiff David Rasmussen filed a lawsuit in federal court in California, accusing Tesla of fraud and seeking a class action on behalf of affected "Model X and Model S" owners around the world. It is understood that the owners of the above two models found that the battery mileage of the older generation plummeted, losing 64 kilometers.

The plaintiff said its 2014 Model S 85 lost about 8 kilowatt-hours of battery capacity, but Tesla said this was normal.

Tesla said that the company's top priority is to provide a better user experience as much as possible when it is safe, and the purpose of the software upgrade is to improve battery life, while a small number of older Model S and Model X models may experience a decline in mileage when they are fully charged, and are currently reducing the impact of the upgrade on old car owners.

The issue of mileage was actually exposed as early as May. After a Tesla Model S electric car ignited spontaneously in Hong Kong in May, Tesla said that out of caution, the charging and cooling management settings of Model S and Model X models would be modified through wireless software upgrades in order to protect the battery and improve battery life. In June, some car owners raised the problem of reduced mileage after the software update. Tesla said that only a small number of car owners were affected by the reduced battery mileage, and said he planned to improve the impact of the software upgrade. at the same time, Tesla also said that the charging behavior is based on a variety of factors.

In addition, some car owners have found that their vehicles can no longer be recharged to 100%. They are seeking compensation through arbitration, while at least three car owners have sold their cars, while others have chosen to disable WiFi to avoid receiving software updates that affect battery mileage.

The plaintiff said in the complaint that Tesla fraudulently upgraded his software under the guise of safety and increasing the battery life of the vehicle in an attempt to avoid his responsibilities and legal obligations. Knowing that there is a defect, but did not inform the consumer.

The plaintiff also pointed out that in a series of recent incidents of spontaneous combustion of Tesla's battery, Tesla did not inform consumers of the specific cause of the fire and the potential danger, but evaded responsibility by means of software updates and battery restrictions.

Tesla said that a vehicle safety report was published on the website, which said that electric vehicle spontaneous combustion is very rare. From 2012 to 2018, Tesla's car caught fire for every 170 million miles. In May, Tesla said that the possibility of a fire in his car was the same as that of a fuel car.

However, this year, Tesla has appeared spontaneous combustion many times around the world, but Tesla rarely announced the specific reasons for its occurrence, and even evaded responsibility, slow response, poor service attitude and other problems in the after-sale process made Model owners feel disappointed with Tesla.

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