Barrett Lyon owns one of every Tesla Motors Inc model ever made by the EV firm. He has a Roadster, a Model S and now a Model X, which he returned after filing a lawsuit against the automaker over numerous quality issues.
Several issues with Tesla Model X
Last month, Lyon cited several issues with his Model X in a lawsuit against Tesla, says a report from Forbes. The crux of the case involved allegation from Lyon that the EV firm rushed the Model X into production before it was ready for prime-time. Other customers, meanwhile, are seeking and obtaining refunds as well.
In the lawsuit, Lyon claims the cars doors open and closed unpredictably, and smashed into his wife and other cars. The Model X’s Auto-Pilot feature posed a danger in the rain, the lawsuit claimed. Further, he shared a video showing the Model X’s self-parking feature failing to operate properly. Tesla settled the lawsuit, and had Lyon return his Model X, confirmed a Tesla spokesperson to Forbes.
Fight over NDA clause
An earlier report in The Daily Kanban on June 10th, detailed a disgruntled Model X owner, who struggled with the EV firm over the now-amended controversial Non-Disclosure Agreement clause that the automaker was issuing to the customers.
Tesla Motors Inc asked the customer to agree to a statement that reads, “you agree that you will not publicize, directly or indirectly, any Confidential Information or otherwise disclose Confidential Information to any third party except as specified above.”
Later, the Florida State Attorney General was contacted by the Model X owner to discuss Tesla agreement. The Attorney confirmed that such a statement was against the Florida law.
The automaker “settled” the case, and the customer said the helpful Attorney drafted two subpoenas for their records that “served on [Tesla] two months later.” It is uncertain if Lyon is the same unhappy Tesla customer as the Daily Kanban article kept the Model X owner’s name anonymous at their request.
Is this the same case?
The clash over Tesla’s NDA’s came from a different blog post from The Daily Kanban. The post suggested that the EV firm may have been trying to prevent owners and customers from reaching out to government agencies over flaws with their vehicles. Replying to the post, the automaker said it is a conspiracy against it, and accused the blog post, saying they possibly had some financial gain from exposing Tesla’s closeted skeletons. Later, at the request of the NHTSA, the automaker revised its owner agreements.
The quality issues of the Model X have been noticed before as well, and it will be quite interesting to see, if any other owners are dissatisfied enough to take issue with Tesla Motors Inc or court.
