Earlier today I wrote a story about Tesla and what they needed to do to get out of the apparent death spiral that they’re currently in. One of the bullet points that I had was that they had to stay out of legal trouble. But that’s not happening according to Reuters:
South Korea’s antitrust regulator said it would impose a 2.85 billion won ($2.2 million) fine on Tesla Inc for failing to tell its customers about the shorter driving range of its electric vehicles (EVs) in low temperatures.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that Tesla had exaggerated the “driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers” on its official local website since August 2019 until recently.
The driving range of the U.S. EV manufacturer’s cars plunge in cold weather by up to 50.5% versus how they are advertised online, the KFTC said in a statement on Tuesday.
The fine is a rounding error to Elon. Let’s get that out of the way. But the fact that more and more regulators are taking a good hard look at Tesla has got to be a concern. After all, any company needs to make sure it’s on the right side of the law or bad things will happen to said company. And given that Tesla has other organizations conducting investigations into them at the moment, not to mention numerous lawsuits, this is perhaps a sign that Tesla’s problems might be deepening.