this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Tesla odometer uses “predictive algorithms” to void warranty, lawsuit claims (arstechnica.com)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Washedupcynic@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The lead plaintiff in the case, Nyree Hinton, bought a used Model Y with less than 37,000 miles (59,546 km) on the odometer. Within six months, it had pushed past the 50,000-mile (80,467 km) mark, at which point the car's bumper-to-bumper warranty expired. (Like virtually all EVs, Tesla powertrains have a separate warranty that lasts much longer.)

For this six-month period, Hinton says his Model Y odometer gained 13,228 miles (21,288 km). By comparison, averages of his three previous vehicles showed that with the same commute, he was only driving 6,086 miles (9,794 km) per 6 months.

Edit: I just want to point out that I just learned that changing your tires to ones of a different diameter can also affect how your spedometer clocks. So yeah, this issue is full of nuance and plausible things as to why this could not be true.

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[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

I definitely lean toward this being genuine manufacturing error (or user error).

That said? Never underestimate the power of market research. I was just chatting with a friend about how neither of us understand cars beyond the most basic of emergency maintenance and I could 100% see a predatory system target us (moreso than the ones we know target us).

Similarly, I would assume most former grad students are used to actually monitoring mileage because we are trying to push our crap for as long as we can. Whereas someone who has been a tech bro for a decade probably expects to buy a new car every time they get a bonus and wouldn't care.

That said? Assuming this IS fraud on tesla's part (and that is generally a safe assumption), my money is on something like:

The odometer nudging is designed to make sure everyone hits their mileage based warranty after N years. Every M months it will estimate your average use and "nudge" you based on heuristics. Hinton had a particularly low mileage the period before so it scaled them much higher for the next period while they were monitoring it.