Tesla warns that a federal probe into whether it exaggerated the range of its cars may lead to a ‘material adverse impact on our business’::Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Tesla had created a special “diversions team” to avoid dealing with complaints from customers about their vehicle ranges.
Dieselgate is estimated to have killed 5,000 people per year in Europe alone (and they were selling those cars worldwide).
There is a big difference between lying about how far your car will go on a charge and releasing toxic (and illegal) chemicals into the air while the car is driving… especially when the car has the capability to capture those chemicals but the system was deliberately setup to only activate while the car was undergoing safety checks.
VW’s “solution” to the scandal was to basically do what Tesla is accused of right now. They modified the car to give it worse MPG in winter than what was advertised to buyers (as far as I know, the system to capture chemicals requires a lot of heat, and you need to run the engine at higher RPM to create enough heat in winter).
Where I’m going with the comparison to VW is we don’t know where that rabbit hole goes with Tesla. Diesel-gate just kept getting worse for VW the more investigators dug into it. Tesla appears to be an even less professional operation. I can only imagine what would come out if there was a real investigation there.