Little by little, but information is constantly emerging that leaves Tesla, which until recently was a company that was particularly well-respected by public opinion, in a situation that is difficult to sustain due to practices that are difficult to justify. Without further ado, it wasn’t until December that we learned that the brand had been forced to recall virtually every car it had sold in the United States since 2012 (although the NHTSA allowed Tesla to try to fix the problems through an OTA software update) and that a former company employee claimed that its cars were “experiments on public roads”.

That, as I say, only during December, but if we look further back we find a disturbing historywhich ranges from musings about spying on its users to failed demonstrations of its Full Self-Driving technology, including its absolute invasion of its customers’ privacy, the company’s advertising fraud, increasing pressure from regulators, its lack of progress in terms of autonomy, while seeing that Mercedes has moved forward… and all this in a context in which brands of Chinese origin are gaining not only presence but also prestige.

Today, Tesla endures at least in part thanks to the prestige gained in its early days, because many users of the brand are satisfied with it. However, and as (almost) everyone knows, a disgruntled customer can be a big problem, especially if they find out that they have been cheated by the company. And it turns out that’s exactly what Tesla has done to many, potentially tens of thousands, of its customers.This is according to a survey conducted by the Reuters agency.

The investigation tells of failures, some of them very dangerous, which occurred regularly, some of which could also affect cars fresh from an authorized dealer. As an example of this, the article cites the case of Shreyansh Jain, who bought a 2023 Tesla Model Y and suddenly lost control of the car just one day after picking it up while traveling with his wife and three-year-old daughter. The right front suspension collapsed and as a result he lost control of the steering and part of the vehicle went straight on the tarmac. Fortunately, this happened while he was driving at low speed, but if it had happened to him on the road, the consequences could have been fatal.

That was the first shock, but the second came when he got an estimate for the repair: $14,000 that Tesla refused to accept because they claimed the accident was caused by previous suspension damage. In the end, his insurance picked up a large portion (but not all) of the payment, but of course it also added to the file of Jain, who will no doubt have to face much higher insurance rates for this incident. It’s hard to imagine how he must have felt after a manufacturing failure compromised his safety and Tesla washed its hands of it.

This research, based on internal documents and statements of former Tesla employees, should mark a before and after both in the public image of the brand and in the attitude of the regulators towards it. Increasingly, it seems that safety is not a priority for the brand, and from what has now been discovered, it seems that honesty is not either.