Tesla asked to pay ~$6,000 to Model S P85D owners in Norway for misleading power output

Last year, we reported that Norway’s Consumer Council was now acting as a mediator between Tesla and over 150 Model S P85D owners in the country because of issues over how Tesla was advertising the power rating of the vehicle or its motors.

Tesla says that the Consumer Council agreed with the automaker, but the complaint has since been moved to the Consumer Disputes Commission, which recently released its verdict in favor of the Model S owners.

The issue revolved around the way Tesla was listing the power of its motors for the Model S P85D, which has two motors. When first introducing the vehicle, Tesla was marketing the vehicle as having a combined motor output of 691 hp (467 in the back and 224 in the front).

While those are indeed the correct outputs of each motor, the vehicle was never able to achieve those numbers due to several other limitations than only the combined potential output of the motors.

Tesla claimed that they always made it clear that the numbers were for the motors and not the vehicle itself. The automaker also highlighted that it didn’t actually change the actual performance ratings of the Model S P85D, but some owners still felt deceived.

Not long after the issue arose, Tesla changed the way it is listing the power output of its cars.

Now we learn that Norway’s Consumer Disputes Commission is siding with the plaintiffs and is asking Tesla to pay 50,000 Norwegian Krones (~$6,000 USD) to each Model S P85D owners in a recently released verdict.

With over 150 owner complainants during the last count with Consumer Council, but also around 600 total owners in the country at the time the complaint was filed, it could easily become a significant fine for Tesla – potentially more than $1 million.

Following the verdict, a Tesla spokesperson sent us the following statement:

“Testing done by Tesla and independent third parties has demonstrated that the Model S P85D’s acceleration and motor power numbers have always been accurate, even understated. With respect to acceleration, Tesla described the P85D as having a 0-100 kph time of 3.3 seconds, and Motor Trend and others actually achieved a time of 3.1 seconds. Similarly, the motor power numbers used by Tesla were legally required and confirmed as accurate by European regulatory authorities. Based on this information, the Consumer Council previously resolved these issues in Tesla’s favor. Tesla will be reviewing the decision by the Consumer Disputes Commission to better understand the conclusion that it reached.”

The company still has a few weeks to appeal before it has to award the compensations to the owners.