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Russian Tesla car owner wins bonanza lawsuit over automotive malfunction

Having forwarded a claim to the seller the woman was offered to send the car to the service center in Berlin at her own expense
Moscow Tesla Club Sergei Fadeichev/TASS
Moscow Tesla Club
© Sergei Fadeichev/TASS

YEKATERINBURG, July 17. /TASS/. A woman from Yekaterinburg has won more than 13 mln rubles ($206,653) in a lawsuit she filed against a car dealer after her Tesla car partially malfunctioned just a few months after the purchase, according to a statement by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court. She also received more than 6 mln rubles ($104,000) in fines.

"The defendant has been penalized for cost of the car — 13,130,571 rubles ($209,000), slapped with a fine to the tune of 6,565,285 rubles ($104,000), and state fees of 60,000 rubles ($955) to be paid. <...> In December 2017, the woman purchased a Tesla Model X 100D automobile from the Moscow Tesla Club. In April 2018, following the purchase payment, the car was handed over to the buyer. However, her joy wouldn’t last long, in August of the same year one electronic key failed, and in September, the second one did not respond to any keystrokes," the court statement reads.

The woman sent a claim to the seller, but it offered to send the car to the service center in Berlin at the expense of the buyer. Later, specialists at the Moscow Tesla Club restored access to the car through a mobile application.

In November 2018, the dealer suggested that the woman could send her Tesla Model X 100D to the factory in Berlin and pay for it out of her own pocket, but she decided to return the car and sought a refund.

"The parties failed to resolve the issue out of court, and the woman filed a consumer protection lawsuit with the judicial system. The defendant presented the results of an online automotive diagnostics test to the court, which indicated the keys’ malfunction was the consumer’s fault. But the court of original jurisdiction [trial court] rejected this argument because the car’s owner did not have an opportunity to be present during the check," according to the statement.