this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Tesla odometer uses “predictive algorithms” to void warranty, lawsuit claims (arstechnica.com)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Washedupcynic@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The lead plaintiff in the case, Nyree Hinton, bought a used Model Y with less than 37,000 miles (59,546 km) on the odometer. Within six months, it had pushed past the 50,000-mile (80,467 km) mark, at which point the car's bumper-to-bumper warranty expired. (Like virtually all EVs, Tesla powertrains have a separate warranty that lasts much longer.)

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.

Edit: I just want to point out that I just learned that changing your tires to ones of a different diameter can also affect how your spedometer clocks. So yeah, this issue is full of nuance and plausible things as to why this could not be true.

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[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 3 points 4 days 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.