Secondly, Tesla said that the NHTSA had not opened any investigation and hadn’t even started a so-called “preliminary evaluation”, which is the “lowest form of formal investigatory work it does”. The car maker said on April 20 the regulator asked about its suspension as part of a “routine screening” and on April 30, Tesla complied.
“NHTSA has since told us that we have cooperated fully and that no further information is needed. Neither before nor after this information was provided has NHTSA identified any safety issue with Tesla’s suspensions. This can be confirmed with NHTSA,” Tesla said.
And in regards to the non-disclosure agreement, Tesla said that it would never ask a customer to sign a document to prevent them from talking to NHTSA or any other government agency”, calling such claims “preposterous”.
Tesla said that if a customer tells it that something went wrong with the car, the company covers it even if the problem was not caused by the vehicle. In this situation, the U.S. firm discounts or conducts the repair for free, and in this situation it does ask customers to sign a “Goodwill Agreement”, but this is “rare”.
“The basic point is to ensure that Tesla doesn’t do a good deed, only to have that used against us in court for further gain,” Tesla said, but added that it would work with the authorities to see if it “can handle it differently”.
“This agreement never even comes close to mentioning NHTSA or the government and it has nothing to do with trying to stop someone from communicating with NHTSA or the government about our cars. We have absolutely no desire to do something like that. It is deeply ironic that the only customer who apparently believes that this document prevents him from talking to NHTSA is also the same one who talked to NHTSA. If our agreement was meant to prevent that, it obviously wasn’t very good.”
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