A group of Tesla owners has come out to say they are on a hunger strike to get Elon Musk’s attention.
“Norway has the most Teslas per capita in the world. But a lot of customers are not happy,” their website says.
“We are the canary in the coal mine,” the site adds. The company itself does not separate out its sales data by country, but sales in Europe and China helped spur a lot of its growth last year, per the New York Times.
The company delivered its first Model Y’s to Australia and New Zealand this month.
First Model Y deliveries in Australia and New Zealand pic.twitter.com/WYLMVhWjdS
— Tesla (@Tesla) August 16, 2022
The Tesla owners said on the site they are trying to draw Musk’s attention to issues including issues operating the car in cold and warm weather, struggles with Autopilot, charging problems, rust on the cars, in particular, Model 3; and poor customer service from Tesla.
Those claims might have some credence, according to Daniel Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.
“Norway is a major market for EVs and Tesla’s issues in cold weather is a well-documented issue hitting a boiling point,” he told Entrepreneur by text.
“Clearly this is attention-grabbing and Norway is the birth of the EV market. Not a great headline for Musk & Co,” he added.
Elon Musk said last year that the Model 3 had poor quality control, according to CNN. A San Francisco man last week proposed a class action lawsuit related to Tesla’s Autopilot system, and it’s come under increased scrutiny from The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Musk was in Norway this week at the Offshore Northern Shore (ONS), an energy conference where he made widely-reported comments about the need for gas in the near term.
The group who started the hunger strike told Entrepreneur in an email that they confronted Musk at the event, “but he didn’t seem to understand what we were talking about.”
Musk did not respond to a request for comment on the confrontation or the issues the group claims Teslas have.
However, the strike apparently didn’t last that long. The group also confirmed to Entrepreneur a statement made to The Drive — that 16 out of the 20 people did not go a full day without eating.
“The strike went on for over 24 hours. It started on Saturday morning and ended Sunday morning. We have not heard back from Elon or Tesla,” the group told Entrepreneur. “But we have not given up, and we hope, as this spreads across the internet that he will get in touch.”
It also disputed a report from outlet Electrek suggesting that the strike was an effort to draw attention to Bilklager, which is “a specialized service that helps car owners in Norway win with their legitimate claims,” according to its site.
Bilklager also has a project open for Tesla owners. The outlet said it found a link to Bilklager on the hunger site.
“The report is false. We did reach out to them to get in touch with dissatisfied Tesla customers and hear their complaints. But we have no relation to them other than that,” the group added.
