Ex-employee files lawsuit against Tesla for selling defective cars

A lawsuit has been filed against Elon Musk’s Tesla by a former employee, who has claimed that the company sold defective cars knowingly and fired the employee because he came to know about it.

Adam Williams filed the lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), which stated that he was hired by Tesla in 2011 and later came to know that the firm failed to ‘disclose to consumers high-dollar, pre-delivery damage repairs’ before the transactions were complete.

He said that the company sold the cars as ‘used’ or labeled as ‘demo/loaner’ vehicles. He informed that this practice was illegal and questioned his superiors regarding this, yet the company took no actions to rectify it, instead they demoted him.

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Williams said that a Tesla director, Brian Applegate demoted him in early 2017 from a post of regional manager to service manager and later in July 2017, he was demoted again to mobile manager and after two months, he was eventually fired.

Futurism reported, the plaintiff was told that he was fired because of his poor work performance; however, Williams argued that he met the company’s standards; he was fired because he reported the company’s illegal practices.

In a statement reported by The Verge, a Tesla spokesperson mentioned that Williams’ claims are false and his termination and accusation of defective cars is ‘not how we do things at Tesla’. The spokesperson repeated that Williams was fired solely due to bad performance. “It’s also at odds with the fact that we rank highest in customer satisfaction of any car brand, with more owners saying they’d buy a Tesla again than any other manufacturer.”

However, this is not the first time the company has dealt with such a lawsuit. Back in 2016, Tesla settled a lawsuit with a Tesla’s ModelX owner who complained that there were issues with the doors and vehicle’s software.