“Tesla has fully cooperated with our requests for information, and NHTSA’s examination of the data is underway”, said Bryan Thomas, Communications Director, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “The agency immediately informed Tesla that any language implying that consumers should not contact the agency regarding safety concerns is unacceptable, and NHTSA expects Tesla to eliminate any such language”.
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The company says it has asked customers to sign the Goodwill Agreement when it agrees to fix a problem that wasn’t the fault of the vehicle. It also stated that Tesla wouldn’t be responsible for “any and all claims or damages arising out of or in any way connected with any claims or incidents leading or related to our provision of Goodwill [paying half of the fix cost]”.
Tesla replied by saying that the reason they required NDAs was for them to avoid paying for repairs after the warranty period due to an “implied admission of fault”, reports the blog post from KanBan.
The safety agency said Thursday that it had received 33 complaints since October about suspension system problems involving the Model S, Tesla’s biggest seller.
Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) made it clear that there is no safety defects in the suspensions of its Model S and Model X vehicles, in a statement released on Friday.
The online message-board post from Mr. Cordaro, the Pennsylvania Model S owner, ignited a series of events that led to Tesla’s long blog post defending its vehicles and practices. Owner-reported defects are a major source of information for NHTSA investigations.
“The suspension ball joint experienced very abnormal rust”, the company said in its post.
Niedermeyer also notes in his blog post that two other auto failures documented in the Tesla Motors forums have been resolved with out-of-warranty work from Tesla accompanied by a similar Goodwill Agreement.
The Palo Alto, California, company said one of its cars had an abnormal amount of rust on a suspension part, a problem it hasn’t seen in any other auto.
In a lengthy blog post, Tesla said it would never ask customers to sign a document preventing them from speaking with NHTSA.
But Tesla said it was to protect itself legally rather than quieting Tesla owners.
After the customer “gpcoraro” notified Tesla that his suspension snapped, he says Tesla told him the parts were not under warranty.
But Tesla CEO Elon Musk remained hopping mad about the slights to his machines and suggested in a series of tweets Friday that some individuals were aiming to tarnish the brand by reporting suspension failures to the federal agency using bogus vehicle identification numbers. When he reviewed it, Cordaro concluded that “it was basically toothless”, he said.
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“This means that there is a strong financial incentive to greatly amplify minor issues and to create false issues from whole cloth”, said Tesla.
