Well I am running with what the original post had in it. Yeah it could be an lie, and if it is, it would be very easy to check, it is not a nebulous claim. Tesla just has to respond and say "no we never charged $40k" if it is in fact not true.
This is my frustration with getting news from blogs. Had this appeared in a standard newspaper, I am confident the reporter would have contacted Tesla and asked them directly if they did indeed charge $40,000. Hence, I am not comfortable taking the original post completely at face value, since the author (from what I can tell) did not perform the kind of reporting I expect from journalists. That leads me to doubt basic questions of fact, such as whether or not Tesla charged those people $40,000.
I'm sorry, you give too much credit to "standard newspapers."
They do very little fact checking, if any.
However, being well-established might make them an easier target for libel / defamation. That doesn't seem to scare them into better reporting, though.
That sentiment is popular, but I don't buy it. The original post made no effort (or, he told us about no efforts) to corroborate the anecdotes with Tesla or the people who performed the servicing. That is, he did no reporting. That story would not be run in the NY Times or Washington Post without doing that.
Did they? I'm not being glib. Was that conjecture in the previous post, or was it an established fact?