A court in Norway has ordered Tesla to pay local owners of its electric cars $16,000 each for forcibly reducing their range.

A court in Norway has ordered Tesla to pay 136,000 kroner (about $16,000) to thousands of local owners of Tesla Model S and Model X electric cars. The total payout could be about $160 million.

As Electrek writes, the decision affects Model S and Model X electric cars with a battery capacity of 85 kWh, which were produced before 2016. In total, there are approximately 10 thousand of these electric cars in Norway, but so far only 30 owners of the company's electric cars have filed a lawsuit against Tesla.

The gist of the claims against Tesla is that in 2019, the company released two software updates for electric vehicles that reduced the range of the cars by about 10% (about 45 kilometers) and significantly increased the battery charging time at Supercharger charging stations. Earlier, the company said that the updates should make electric vehicle batteries safer and extend their service life, while Tesla noted that a decrease in range after installing the updates was recorded only in a small proportion of electric cars.

Tesla has not yet responded to the Norwegian court's decision. The company can either pay the penalties by May 30 or appeal the court's decision, The Verge writes. Earlier, a similar lawsuit against Tesla was filed by electric car owners from the US

Let us recall that Norway is a world leader in the rate of transition to electric vehicles. In 2020, almost 75% of new car sales in this country were electric vehicles (54.3%) and plug-in hybrids (20.4%). This figure has increased significantly compared to 2019, when such cars accounted for 56% of sales in Norway. The country's authorities expect that by 2025, only electric vehicles will be sold in the country.

Until recently, Tesla was the number one electric car seller in Norway, but now Volkswagen's electric cars are selling more actively in the country.