Elon Musk-led electric carmaker Tesla has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit that claims that the company used a software update to reduce the maximum battery voltage in 1,743 Tesla Model S sedans, reports Reuters.
As a part of this settlement, owners of the vehicle will get getting $625 each which is touted to be “many times the prorated value of the temporarily reduced maximum voltage.” This is based on the proposed settlement documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
Do note that the proposed settlement is subject to approval by a judge. A U.S. judge set a Dec. 9 hearing on the proposed settlement for the lawsuit that was filed in August 2019.
Lawyers, who filed the lawsuit for the car owners said that the “voltage limitation was temporary, with a 10% reduction lasting about 3 months, and a smaller 7% reduction lasting another 7 months before the corrective update was released in March 2020.”
A subsequent update restored about 3 percent of the battery voltage in these vehicles, and a third update released in March 2020 was designed to fully restore the batteries’ voltage over time as the vehicles are driven, the settlement documents said.
The documents further add that the company data shows 1,552 vehicles with the maximum battery voltage fully restored and 57 have had battery replacements. As for the other vehicles, the maximum voltage should continue to be restored over time.
Tesla recently announced that its revenue stood at $11.9 billion in Q2 2021, beating analyst expectations and showing a 98 percent increase compared to the same period of last year. GAAP earnings per share soared by 920 percent year-on-year to $1.02.
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