The Justice Department has expanded its investigation into Tesla’s business practices to include the full-charge range of its vehicles and “personal benefits” for senior executives or major shareholders, the company said, without elaborating.
The revelation came following recent news reports that the automaker appeared to have misled customers about how far its vehicles could travel before needing to be plugged in.
Tesla also said in a regulatory filing that the government subpoenaed documents related to “personal benefits” and unidentified “related parties,” a term that often refers to top management, company directors or major shareholders.
The U.S. attorney’s office in New York has been investigating whether funds were misused at a planned home for the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, near the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, the Wall Street Journal reported in August. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
“To our knowledge, no government agency has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred in an ongoing investigation,” the company said in the filing, a quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tesla said it was cooperating with authorities.
Portal and Consumer Reports have reported that Tesla vehicles in road tests fell short of the range claimed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which tests cars on wheels in a lab. Automakers have some discretion in configuring their cars for testing and can influence the results.
The range of all battery-powered cars suffers in cold weather, but a Tesla Model Y sport utility vehicle that Consumer Reports tested fell at least 50 miles short of its claimed range even in warm weather.
The Ford Mach-E and Volkswagen ID.4 SUVs exceeded their claimed warm-weather ranges when Consumer Reports tested them under identical conditions as the Tesla vehicle. A Hyundai Ioniq 5 came within two miles of its EPA range.
Tesla previously disclosed that the Justice Department had issued subpoenas for documents related to its self-driving software. Tesla is the target of lawsuits alleging the software played a major role in accidents that resulted in deaths and injuries and does not live up to Mr. Musk and the company’s claims about its performance.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the SEC and various local and international authorities have also requested information, Tesla said, without providing details.
Shares of Tesla have fallen 13 percent since Wednesday, when the company reported that third-quarter profit fell 44 percent after it cut prices on its models.