A group of Tesla owners claims to go on hunger strike for Elon Musk’s attention, but there’s more

A group of Tesla owners in Norway claims they are going on a hunger strike to get Elon Musk’s attention about a long series of problems they claim to have with their vehicles.

However, it looks like there might be another motive.

Elon Musk was just in Norway earlier this week to attend an energy conference, and he said it was also to “show his appreciation for the Norwegian people’s adoption of electric vehicles.”

Norway is indeed adopting electric vehicles at a higher rate than any other country, and it is also Tesla’s biggest market per capita.

While successful, Tesla’s foray into Norway hasn’t been without issues.

The automaker’s rapid growth in deliveries in the country couldn’t match its service expansion, which led to major service wait times that Musk personally acknowledged.

Furthermore, some Norwegian owners also sued Tesla through a consumer protection agency, and Tesla was found guilty of throttling charging speed and asked to pay $16,000 to thousands of owners.

Now there’s another group of “dissatisfied Norwegian Tesla owners,” and they claim to be going on a hunger strike to get Musk’s attention:

They wrote on their website:

We are a group of dissatisfied Norwegian Tesla owners. We believe that if Elon Musk is made aware of our troubles, he will solve the situation. Please help us get his attention.

They have a very long list of complaints – most of which are known issues that have gotten some attention in the past and have mostly been fixed, but there are definitely some that might still occur:

• The car won’t start in cold weather
• Door handles won’t open in cold weather
• Intense squeaking noise
• Car won’t start in warm weather
• “Bubbles” in seats
• Loose front seat
• Trunk lid filled with rain water
• Autopilot does not work properly
• Internet is slow and does not work as it ought to
• The wipers do not work (well enough)
• The car creaks when you pass speed bumps and other bumps in the road
• Decorative moldings loosen
• The lights do not work properly
• The doors stop working properly
• Doors that open by themselves
• The computer does not work
• Yellow edges around the display screens
• Windows that do not close completely
• Systems reset on their own
• Problems charging
• Reduced power
• Rust problems on new cars (especially Model 3)
• Poor paint quality means that the car has to be repainted
• You were promised free charging throughout the car’s lifetime, but the new charging stations do not fit the car
• Lower battery life that Tesla claims
• Problems with the air conditioner
• Not all problems are solved when the car is serviced
• Tesla promise to contact you, but you do not hear from them
• You have to wait on the phone for a long time before Tesla answers

Now the group of owners claims that they are going on a hunger strike to get Musk’s attention in order to fix those issues. However, Electrek found a link on their website to Bilklager, which appears to be a legal service that “helps car owners claim legitimate compensation when they are affected by errors, fraud and problems.”

The service claims that it can collect the money for the previous battery capacity and charging throttling issue in which Norway’s consumer protection agency found Tesla to be at fault.

It looks like the “hunger strike” might be a marketing effort to get Tesla owners to use their services for this issue and potentially sign up for other group claims against Tesla.

Let’s see how long the hunger strike lasts…