A Raglan man has appealed to Tesla in a video asking the company for a settlement after he claims it broke a promise made to him.
Niall Darwin bought a wrecked Tesla in Australia, rebuilt it and brought it to New Zealand. But Elon Musk's company won't support it, offering no supercharging nor software updates despite initially promising it.
"I want you to either do what you promised, which is enable support and give supercharging - or I want you to come up with some kind of offer that will close this off," Mr Darwin says in a video uploaded to YouTube.
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Mr Darwin bought a Tesla 90D for $40,000 as an insurance write-off. Brand new, this older model sold for about $160,000. His plan was to rebuild it, but before he did he wanted reassurance it had a key Tesla option - free supercharging.
He got that confirmation in writing from Tesla Sydney, so he rebuilt the car - and it wasn't cheap, costing him $60,000 on top of what the car cost at auction.
With only 3000km on the clock, the car was effectively brand new. But when he finally got it to New Zealand and plugged it in, he got a message saying supercharging was not enabled.
With no supercharging and no software support, Tesla told Mr Darwin his car had to be inspected in New Zealand to make sure it was safe. That inspection said: "Tesla will redeem Unsupported Vehicle and re-enable support."
But the company didn't do that.
"They said because it was written off in Australia, we are not going to support it," Mr Darwin explains. "[They are] basically ignoring their own technicians' test reports."
Tesla told Newshub that due to the extreme amount of damage the vehicle had, it's not confident it's safe and doesn't want to do anything that could increase that risk.
In a statement, Tesla said:
"Customer safety is of the upmost importance to us, and this is the most important factor in this situation. This is very much an isolated case, whereby the vehicle that the customer owns was ruled as a statutory write off, deemed unsafe to be re-registered for road use in Australia and then purchased as a wreck and imported into New Zealand.
"Due to the extreme amount of damage that this vehicle had, we are not comfortable it is safe and do not want to do anything that could increase this risk even further. We apologise to the owner of the car for this inconvenience, but after learning all the facts, we have to prioritise safety."
After a social media campaign by Mr Darwin, Tesla did enable regular fast-charging - which still takes four times as long as supercharging. It has now closed a loophole where a Tesla written-off in Australia can be imported into New Zealand.
Mr Darwin said he's suing Tesla for $20,000 in compensation, but says nothing can repair his electric dream.
In the video posted on Friday, he said Tesla is "choosing to ignore the document and say that the car isn't safe on any grounds whatsoever."
Regardless of what the company feels about it, he said it cannot ignore the document exists, as it was "issued by your company and it's a contract - it's a promise."
"I want you to stop messing me around and make me some kind of offer or deliver on your promises," said Mr Darwin, adding that he's disappointed in Tesla for not hesitating to waste a vehicle, after promoting itself as a supporter of sustainability.
"I got involved with electric cars out of passion, I think the same as you - the idea that we can create a sustainable future," he said.
"Please, get in touch. Let's sort this out let's not waste our time in court. Let's get back on the mission of changing away from waste and damage to the planet."
Newshub.
