Tesla claimed that when tax incentives and gas-savings are taken into account, the Model S 60 will have an effective cost of about $50,000.
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“My initial reaction is welcome to the automotive world, Tesla”, Michelle Krebs, senior analyst for researcher Autotrader.com, said in a phone interview in regard to the suspension investigation.
The new version has a 60 kilowatt hour battery. A follow up email allegedly from the NHTSA said that they were “looking for more examples to test” and were in contact with Tesla.
Dailykanban.com, an auto industry blog, posted excerpts from what it said was an agreement. But they did say that customers agreed not to discuss the problem or the repairs in general with anyone.
Both new Tesla cars will include hardware for the company’s semi-autonomous Autopilot feature. “That’s one interpretation of the “Goodwill Agreement” an owner was asked to sign in exchange for the company partially covering the cost of the fix of a broken suspension, according to an article in The Daily Kanban, which investigated this issue”, according to a recent Forbes News report. Neither before nor after this information was provided has NHTSA identified any safety issue with Tesla’s suspensions.
In separate news, Tesla Motors revealed details about the supposed safety of Model S suspensions.
The NHTSA said on Thursday that it was reviewing reports of suspension problems in Tesla’s Model S and was seeking additional information from vehicle owners and the company.
In a subsequent post, gpcordaro wrote that he visited a Tesla service technician, who “indicated that this is not normal wear and tear and have moved the request to cover the warranty to upper management”.
The “60” in the Model S name refers to the battery size, which determines the range of the vehicle on a single charge.
Tesla sold over 25,000 Model S cars in 2015 and its next vehicle, the Model 3, already has a large stock of orders.
NHTSA is now investigating the issue to see how widespread these goodwill agreements were and to find out if they prevented safety defect from being reported to the agency.
Tesla has released a blog post which strongly denies the claims.
It further added: “NHTSA learned of Tesla’s troublesome nondisclosure agreement last month”.
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Where things get murky is an agreement Tesla presented to some out-of-warranty customers that had to be signed in order for them to receive discounts on fix bills for their broken suspension.
