Tesla, Inc.

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Tesla, Inc.

Basic information
Founded	2003
Type	Public
Industry	Automotive
Official website	https://tesla.com/

Tesla, Inc. (formerly Tesla Motors) is a company founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. In 2008, it was funded and taken over by Elon Musk, when both original founders left their positions.

Controversies

After the company was bought by Elon Musk it has been involved in a number of controversies such as requiring subscriptions or requiring a Tesla technician to fix 2012's Model S, With cases such as the continued denial of adding Apple Carplay or Android Auto to their vehicles, putting an expiry date on their cars, and making a $100,000 utility vehicle whose warranty is void by a car wash.

This is a list of all consumer protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Tesla category.

Privacy Concerns

Tesla employees have allegedly viewed and shared embarrassing, disturbing, and potentially explicit recordings of Tesla through internal messaging systems; Tesla claims that all recordings are anonymous regardless of anonymity, it raises some privacy concerns, such as the fact that employees can even access those recordings in the first place, there don't seem to be effective measures in place to prevent those videos from being shared and they use these recordings to train their artificial intelligence which posses other privacy concerns.

Artificially disabling functionality

Tesla was among the early automakers to implement feature gating through software updates. For example, the company introduced an "acceleration boost" for certain vehicles that increased acceleration performance once the software feature was purchased, despite the necessary hardware already being present in the car.

Tesla initially promoted the inclusion of radar hardware in its Model 3 vehicles, highlighting its role in enhancing driver assistance features. In subsequent production runs, however, the company discontinued radar hardware in new Model 3 units, while continuing to include it in higher-end models such as the Model S (and later the Model X). Later, Tesla issued an over-the-air (OTA) software update that disabled the radar hardware in existing Model 3 vehicles equipped with it. As a result, these vehicles saw changes such as a reduced range of following distance options in Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC), from 1-7 to 2-7. Reports also indicated degraded performance in driver assistance systems, including instances of unexpected braking behavior.

Tesla has also phased out other commonly expected vehicle features, such as ultrasonic parking sensors, reportedly as a cost-saving measure. These changes are often implemented without formal announcements. Additionally, Tesla has removed dedicated rain sensors from some vehicles, with similar impacts on feature performance.

Wrongful legal threats

Tesla once sent a legal threat to a Swedish car repair company called "Grufman Bil AB" to take down a YouTube video that they had posted that showed them smashing a car component that was supposed to hold up a wheel with a big hammer, showing how that component was made of metal that was a lot weaker than one could reasonably expect. Grufman Bil decided to quickly take down that video and when someone asked them why, Grufman Bil said "because it's not worth getting sued over," which indicates that Tesla was possibly threatening to sue people who show important car defects.

Resale restrictions

Tesla has recently started prohibiting the resale of its vehicles within one year of purchase, imposing fines of up to $50,000 on owners who violate the policy. This is done without regard for situations that may necessitate a resale, and appears to align with practices adopted by other companies.