this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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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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[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 278 points 1 week ago (8 children)

It's far more likely that the odometer in Teslas are just poor quality crap like the rest of the car.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 175 points 1 week ago (7 children)

We already know they knowingly lied about battery range, the capabilities of self driving, and a ton of other fraudulent practices. Tesla is doing it intentionally is more likely than poor build quality.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 81 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Odometers are one of the oldest consumer protection tools. If it's off, it's very illegal.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 54 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Yup, odometers were regulated specifically to protect consumers from widespread odometer fraud. Shit like companies requiring oil changes every 5k miles, and the odometer shows 5000 when it’s actually only 4000, so consumers pay for more service than they need. Or cases like this one, where a company is required to provide a warranty until the 50k odometer reading, and then fudges the odometer so it voids the warranty sooner than it should.

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[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 80 points 1 week ago (8 children)
[–] knightly@pawb.social 70 points 1 week ago (1 children)

When accused of crimes, deflect by admitting to even bigger crimes.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)
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[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago

I mean, VW tried to blame poor quality software (aka a bug) for their abnormal emissions, before it was discovered it's fully intended to cheat emissions testing.
I wouldn't put it above Tesla to do the same here.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

Sorry officer, I'm just really stupid.

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[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sure, but then you'd also expect to hear about Teslas with odometers that massively underreport the distance, too. Or that fail altogether. And while no one would be likely to report the former, the latter might be a bigger deal.

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[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 18 points 1 week 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.

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 152 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The speedometer is also predictive.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 42 points 1 week ago

You know this is fake cause it's not on garbage touchscreen

[–] KreekyBonez@lemm.ee 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

appropriate how 88 lines up on the dial...

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[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 141 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 54 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

Shocked I say!!!

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 132 points 1 week ago

"Tesla commits fraud to void warranties."

There FTFY.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 87 points 1 week ago (10 children)

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.

That's 2x. Seems too obvious to be happening on all teslas

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[–] Wimster@lemmy.wtf 78 points 1 week ago

In the past, Tesla lawyers even initiated lawsuits against customers who dared to criticize the quality of their cars or services. Such cases are documented and therefore not fake news. Last week, moreover, DOGE dismantled the department responsible for safety control and approval of new cars entering the market. Tesla experienced too many problems with this department in the past and now, through DOGE, took the opportunity to simply dismantle it. Moral of the story... buy a Tesla, a “safe” decision.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 63 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Good thing we have the CFPB to register and punish companies for shady practices like th...oh, nevermind.

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[–] resipsaloquitur@lemm.ee 62 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You mean the guy that thinks we live in a simulation and he’s the player and we are all NPCs is cheating to give himself an advantage? I’m shocked.

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[–] Mac@mander.xyz 61 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Changing your tire sizing only changes the speedo and odo a few percent. You can usually just ignore it unless you're making drastic changes.

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yeah aeems a pretty useless edit for an obvious fact. Especially as in this case you would need tires half the circumference of the original to make sense.. Gotta be some tiny tires..

Edit, had it the wrong way around

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[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's sooo many individual felonies.

Yet another reason for Elon to wreck all the agencies investigating him.

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[–] Fades@lemmy.world 46 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Add this to the pile of the rest of the illegal things billionaire Musk does simply because he can

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[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 week ago (6 children)

That's 70 miles a day, for anyone who doesn't want to do the math. I don't know where Hinton lives, but that's almost two laps around all of the highways surrounding the city I live in. That's 2 hours of driving on surface roads, not including stop lights and stop signs.

I wonder how much money Tesla has saved by breaking the law this way?

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[–] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Why is proprietary in devices we purchase bad? This right here. We are connected to the internet 24/7. Companies hiding what they control and what they collect, which is bad.

[–] invertedspear@lemm.ee 37 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Really needs to back this up with some corroborating evidence like Google maps location timeline or something. I don’t trust Tesla, but I also know when I switched to EV I started making excuses to drive everywhere. Practically free miles and great acceleration made driving a joy again. Also my wife and I would often swap vehicles if she had some errand across town to save on gas. Combined that out way more miles in my EV than I had been putting on the previous gas car.

If all this guy did is commute, then he likely has a case, but I really question that.

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[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Has anyone compared it to a GPS?

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[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 34 points 1 week ago
odometer += sensor * this_is_just_for_debugging_i_promise(odometer);
[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Should be super easy to prove too... Take an assortment of Teslas to a 1 mile stretch of road, drive it up and down 20 times, measure the mileage before and after.

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 33 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Right, but Tesla has had time to push new code to their cars. So we could get a negative result now and still have past shadiness.

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 18 points 1 week ago

If the courts cared for the rights of people they would subpoena code routinely

We can't be ruled by black boxes that serve people who hate us. It has to end

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[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago

Like they can't even be competent enough to hire a hitman to kill their whistleblowers. Boeing are just laughing at them.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Feels like they should be able to view the software and hardware controlling the odometer, and if it's doing anything suspicious.

I wonder if they'll actually do anything if they find Tesla is doing fraud. Feel like everyone who OK'd the decision should be barred from working in the industry for life, and made to forfeit everything they gained while doing the fraud.

While I'm making magical wishes, I'd also like Musk and all of his followers to choke to death.

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[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Tesla? Muskrat? Engaged in fraud‽‽

Well I am just shocked, SHOCKED...well, not that shocked

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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 27 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It cannot possibly be legal to have the odometer show anything except actual miles traveled.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 week ago (8 children)

A odometer is a smell sensor, no?

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 week ago

They don't install those in new cars, you need one made in the ol'factory.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

How silly, it's obvious that would be an odormeter. An odometer is about something else entirely.

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[–] Widdershins@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is weird that he probably saw Danny DeVito rolling back the odometers in Matilda while in a K hole and misconstrued the whole situation. That scene of Danny with the drill taking thousands of miles off an old beater probably seemed like a jackpot idea in that drug addled mind of his.

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[–] mooncake@lemm.ee 22 points 1 week ago

Teslas are nothing more than heaps of junk, I just laugh at anyone driving a Tesla

[–] nomecks@lemmy.wtf 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can't change the tire size on a Model Y very much because of the weird suspension design.

[–] cmlael67@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

Plus, to double the mileage registered by using different size tires, you'd have to put a roughly 10" tire on a Model Y.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Hinton's lawsuit alleges that Tesla "employs an odometer system that utilizes predictive algorithms, energy consumption metrics, and driver behavior multipliers that manipulate and misrepresent the actual mileage traveled by Tesla Vehicles" and that his car "consistently exhibited accelerated mileage accumulations of varying percentages ranging from 15 percent to 117 percent higher than plaintiff's other vehicles and his driving history."

Here comes Big Government, trying to constrain cutting edge innovations in accurately counting how many times the wheel rotates.

I hope DOGE is able to save California from itself by defunding whatever court system might be involved in persecuting hard working odometer engineers with this flagrantly Woke and Soy legal case.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 week ago

Well I'm curious to find out what discovery will show.

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