Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) Sued in Norway Over “Too Low Horsepower”

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)

Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is facing a lawsuit in Norway, which is one of the hottest markets for the company’s Model S cars.

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The suit, from more than 100 owners of the Tesla Model S P85D sedan, claims that the car’s speed is too low compared to what the company advertised.

Customers is asking the U.S. car maker to return their money because cars it advertised with an “insane mode” of acceleration didn’t go fast enough, Bloomberg News reported.

The news report, which was first appeared in Dagens Naeringsliv newspaper on Wednesday, said that the lawsuit was filed by some 126 customers in Oslo District Court. The publication did not disclose the amount of money being demanded by those customers.

According to the publication, Tesla pledged that the Model S sedan’s P85D performance version can reach 700 horsepower. But the plaintiffs are saying the model only reached 469 horsepower versus 700 horsepower, according to Wikborg Rein attorney Kaspar Thommessen said.

The lawyer told Bloomberg News that the model “has too low horsepower. And “it affects the car’s performance, according to the consumers.”

Tesla Response On Norway Lawsuit

In response to the lawsuit, the electric car maker said the model meets requirements “according to the measurement method required by the authorities.”

Tesla spokesman Even Sandvold Roland told Bloomberg News that the company’s own tests and independent checks confirmed that the P85D can accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometers (60 miles) per hour in 3.1 to 3.3 seconds. The performance figures “have always been accurate,” the spokesman said.

In June, Norway’s Consumer Disputes Commission ordered that five P85D owners who filed complaints of inadequate acceleration should be refunded as much as 50,000 kroner apiece.

Oslo District Court has set hearings in the case for mid-December.

Shares of Tesla are down 13.76% for the year. The stock has dropped by more than 22% in the past 12 months.

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