Tesla settles class-action lawsuit over Model S range reduction

Way, way back in 2019, we reported on an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) into some issues that customers were having with their Tesla Model S batteries. Specifically, Tesla sent out an over-the-air software update that was meant to address a problem with the Model S' battery pack, but it ended up reducing the range of the affected vehicles.

That range reduction was enough to piss off a bunch of Model S owners enough that they filed a class-action lawsuit which, according to a report published on Thursday by Reuters, they won. Not only that, Tesla has agreed to pay out $1.5 million to owners of affected vehicles, which works out to around $625 per owner.

If that doesn't sound like a lot, it's because it's not. You can hardly buy a house in Los Angeles for $1.5 million these days, and to Tesla, it's barely a drop in the bucket. Still, it is likely satisfying to those affected owners who -- according to Tesla -- had their cars' range restored beginning in March of 2020.

We'd typically reach out to an automaker for a comment on a story like this, but Tesla dissolved its PR department, so all we can really do is scream into the void of Twitter at Elon Musk and hope for a response that we're unlikely to get. It's a bad scene for us and for consumers.