{"id":207019,"date":"2026-03-16T16:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T16:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/207019\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T16:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T16:57:07","slug":"teslas-range-claims-are-bogus-texas-owner-says-in-suit-he-gets-half-the-advertised-mileage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/207019\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla’s range claims are bogus, Texas owner says in suit. He gets half the advertised mileage."},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas Tesla<\/a> owner is accusing the Austin automaker of fraud, claiming his vehicle has barely half the range the\u00a0company\u00a0advertised.<\/p>\n

James Dondero bought a 2022 Model X<\/a> for $106,290,\u00a0taking into account Tesla Inc.\u2019s advertisement that the vehicle would travel more than 300 miles on a full charge. He also paid an additional $20,000 for the \u201clong-range\u201d option, which Tesla promised would increase the vehicle\u2019s range from 311 miles to 348 miles. Despite that,\u00a0Dondero says in a lawsuit, he can\u2019t make it more than 185 miles on a full charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesla hyped the range of its electric vehicles, or EVs, raising consumer expectations beyond what the vehicles can deliver,\u201d his suit says. \u201cAnd Tesla compounded this problem by selling Long Range packages (at $20,000 a pop) to customers like\u00a0Dondero without delivering any value.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Tesla will end Model S and Model X production to focus on robots<\/a><\/p>\n

Calling the vehicle defective and accusing Tesla of \u201ccontinued misrepresentations,\u201d\u00a0Dondero is claiming breach of contract and fraudulent inducement related to his purchase of the luxury SUV.<\/p>\n

He says he followed instructions provided by Tesla customer service, such as depleting the battery charge to less than 5% and fully charging it three times in a row, or charging to less than 100% using the home charging unit. Still, the car\u2019s performance didn\u2019t improve, he alleges. Tesla also scheduled service appointments without offering a new diagnosis and declined to repurchase the vehicle.<\/p>\n

In addition to the driving range issues, Tesla delivered Dondero\u2019s Model X without a center console wireless charging component, a feature that Tesla staff told him wasn\u2019t installed due to chip shortages at the time of manufacture.<\/p>\n

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Dondero is among many Tesla customers accusing the Austin automaker of exaggerating its vehicles\u2019 range.<\/p>\n

A\u00a02023 investigation by Reuters<\/a> found that Tesla\u2019s range estimates \u2014 provided on a dashboard meter and its navigation system \u2014 overstated vehicle range. While the latter accounted for temperature conditions, which can affect range, it still provided a generous estimate rather than the conservative estimates typical of other EV makers.<\/p>\n

Faced with customers who desired a fix for their lower-than-expected ranges, Tesla created a diversion team tasked with canceling range-related appointments, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

Dondero says Tesla\u2019s current and former employees admitted that they had no knowledge of how to service or run diagnostics on Tesla batteries but continued scheduling appointments in which the vehicle\u2019s performance wasn\u2019t improved.<\/p>\n

Driving range has long been one of the key considerations for car buyers weighing a transition from a gasoline-powered vehicle to an EV. A recent Deloitte survey<\/a> found that consumers weighing options for their next auto purchase didn\u2019t have electric vehicles as their top pick, and their chief concerns with EVs included limited driving range, time required to charge and the vehicles\u2019 price premium.<\/p>\n

Dondero\u2019s complaint, which was filed in Dallas County where he resides, has been a long time coming. The suit claims Tesla resisted Dondero\u2019s efforts to obtain discovery and moved to compel arbitration, which was denied. Tesla then supplied multiple unsuccessful appeals, which the suit describes as \u201cdilatory tactics to prevent Dondero from seeking relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case comes as Tesla is discontinuing Models X and S and shutting down\u00a0production line at its Fremont, Calif., factory to focus on manufacturing its Optimus robot<\/a>. Still, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would continue to support owners of the discontinued vehicle models.<\/p>\n

Dondero is seeking a trial by jury and relief in the form of damages and attorneys fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas Tesla owner is accusing the Austin automaker of fraud, claiming his vehicle has barely half the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81253,81251,81255,81254,81252,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-207019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-driving-range","tag-james-dondero","tag-range-estimates","tag-tesla-batteries","tag-tesla-vehicles","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}