"Appears" how? Where is the substantiation? I came away wit the same concern. I can see the "onerous" terminology in the settlement agreements, which is standard lawyer CYA in these kinds of disputes.
The article also noted a former employee is involved in a lawsuit accusing Tesla of reselling lemons.
1. Tesla sometimes does repairs via "goodwill" accounting instead of standard warrantee service. On it's face, this sounds like a good thing.
2. Tesla bought some guys car, then resold it. Again, that's a good thing in isolation.
And the suggestion is that they did the goodwill thing so that they could scam the new owner of the car by evading lemon law disclosure. Well, OK. Did they? Show us the evidence. If there's no actual car that got sold where you can document these repairs and show they were unresolved... I just don't think there's much of a case here.
The only way this makes sense is if you start out a priori with an assumption that Tesla is trying to scam their customers, then try to find a scenario where they could do it. That works for writing novel plots, it's not much evidence in an actual court.
In what way is that possibly good?? At best its a deliberate mischaracterization that obscures the number of serious manufacturing flaws. At worst its fraudulent accounting.
> And the suggestion is that they did the goodwill thing so that they could scam the new owner of the car by evading lemon law disclosure. Well, OK. Did they? Show us the evidence. If there's no actual car that got sold where you can document these repairs and show they were unresolved... I just don't think there's much of a case here.
I linked two, and theres firsthand testimony from someone who was in the company. You're just freely making shit up
At best it's not a deliberate mischaracterization. It depends on the judgment call of whether the repairs would otherwise be covered under warranty.
Assuming the law said the car is lemon after x repair attempts and Tesla bought it back after x-1 so that lemon law would not apply and they could still resell it.
The article didn't present any evidence of lemon laundering, just that it was a compelling theory for goodwill repairs while presenting unrelated incidents of unethical behavior by Tesla to establish a narrative that Tesla isn't above such shenanigans.
> "Tesla provides express warranties. Under state lemon laws and the federal Magnuson-Moss Act and other provisions of state and federal laws, they are required to ensure that they comply with the warranties, or provide a refund. It appears they are attempting to evade state lemon laws by claiming their so-called 'goodwill' repairs don't count toward the criteria for buying back lemons. In addition, Tesla has been requiring lemon owners to sign onerous settlement agreements that silence them and make it easier for Tesla to engage in lemon laundering: the illegal resale of defective lemon vehicles, without branding the titles or taking other steps to protect consumers."