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New Lawsuit Accuses Tesla of Knowingly Selling Defective Vehicles (theverge.com)
A new lawsuit from a former Tesla employee claims the company knowingly sold defective cars, and that the employee was demoted and eventually fired after reporting the practice to his superiors. The lawsuit was filed in late January in New Jersey Superior Court under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA). The Verge reports: The former employee, Adam Williams, worked for Tesla as a regional manager in New Jersey dating back to late 2011. While there, he says he watched the company fail "to disclose to consumers high-dollar, pre-delivery damage repairs" before delivering its vehicles, according to the complaint. Instead, he says the company sold these cars as "used," or labeled as "demo/loaner" vehicles. "There's no merit to this lawsuit. Mr. Williams' description of how Tesla sells used or loaner vehicles is totally false and not how we do things at Tesla," a representative for the company said in response to the lawsuit. "It's also at odds with the fact that we rank highest in customer satisfaction of any car brand, with more owners saying they'd buy a Tesla again than any other manufacturer. Mr. Williams was terminated at Tesla for performance reasons, not for any other reason." The lawyer for the plaintiff could not be reached in time for publish.
Williams says in the court filing that he reported this behavior in late 2016 and early 2017 to his supervisor, as well as Lenny Peake, Tesla's East Coast Regional Manager, and Jerome Guillen, a company vice president. Shortly after that, he claims, he was demoted to service manager of the Springfield, New Jersey Tesla store. He then says he was demoted again later in the year to a "mobile manager" position and was ultimately fired in September 2017. In the lawsuit, Williams argues that he was terminated for reporting the alleged lawbreaking practices, and he should therefore be covered by CEPA's whistleblower protection.
Williams says in the court filing that he reported this behavior in late 2016 and early 2017 to his supervisor, as well as Lenny Peake, Tesla's East Coast Regional Manager, and Jerome Guillen, a company vice president. Shortly after that, he claims, he was demoted to service manager of the Springfield, New Jersey Tesla store. He then says he was demoted again later in the year to a "mobile manager" position and was ultimately fired in September 2017. In the lawsuit, Williams argues that he was terminated for reporting the alleged lawbreaking practices, and he should therefore be covered by CEPA's whistleblower protection.
He alleges Tesla sold used cars that had been repaired as used cards, without labelling them as "lemons"
Thats.... a normal thing to do? It's not like they were claiming to be selling the used cars as new.
Do not blame the QA process or pre-delivery damage. It is simply that the vehicles are "flight proven" vehicles.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Even if this is true it doesn't prove that he was fired for reporting it. It would be very difficult to prove he was fired for any reason other than "performance reasons".
Wow, lemons? That sounds serious! If a vehicle is in the shop more than it's out, then that's certainly grounds for return or replacement. As far as I know, Tesla is pretty good about providing loaner vehicles, but I'd be pissed off if my car were in the shop all the time — especially since the only shop is Tesla. Is there any more information about this?
So just to be clear, Tesla had demo and/or loaner vehicles which were repaired (at some expense which might be described as "high") before they were delivered to customers. These repairs were performed by Tesla, which then sold them as demo and/or loaner vehicles. I'm failing to see a problem here. Their status as demo and/or loaner vehicles was disclosed to the customer, and the problems with the vehicles were repaired before delivery. Who's been harmed in any way? Where in fact is the fraud? What is this alleged whistleblower blowing the whistle about?
Maybe there's more to this, and this just isn't a very good article.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unless Adam Williams owns one of these "used" / "demo" vehicles, how does he have any Standing to bring this lawsuit about at all?
It also seems like it would be pretty easy to query the owners of said vehicles to see if they've had unusual, or frequent problems with their cars.
This sounds like little more than a disgruntled ex-employee abusing the Wild West US Court system.
So damaged vehicles were sold as used rather than as new because it cost less to sell them as used as is, rather than repairing them and selling as new. So basically a non-story, wow some one really truly wants to buy Tesla at a discounted price, really desperate, this kind of tactic stinks of M$ (keep in mind they stuck a poison pill into a phone company to cripple it and buy it cheap, problem was it never recovered). That is rather a sound practice, cost too much to repair, sell it as is, second hand ie the manufacturer sells it to a used vehicle division who sells it as is, rather than have it enter the new vehicle market as a repaired vehicle which most new buyers would not appreciate, so factually correct).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
From: http://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases12/pr20121121a.html
"Attorney General Chiesa noted that, under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and Motor Vehicle Advertising Regulations, it is illegal to advertise a car for sale without disclosing past damage"...