June 5, 2023

Tesla acquired 1000’s of complaints and crash experiences about its Autopilot options between 2015 and 2022, which it tried to maintain hidden, a German-language newspaper experiences.

Leaked inner Tesla knowledge, shared with Handelsblatt courtesy of an “unnamed informer,” depicts a automobile maker with much more technical difficulties than beforehand thought. The complaints reportedly stretch again to 2015, with the newest dated March 2022. 

As Jalopnik notes, the recordsdata allegedly included over 1,000 crash experiences and a desk of three,000 incidents the place drivers expressed security issues about Tesla’s driver help program. There are 139 complaints about unintentional emergency braking and 383 in relation to phantom stops from false collision warnings.

One other 2,400 experiences are about self-acceleration points, whereas 1,500 circumstances deal with braking issues. A lot of the flagged incidents reportedly got here from homeowners within the US, although some originated in Europe and Asia. 

Handelsblatt’s editor-in-chief Sebastian Matthes defined in a public letter that 12 individuals on the German publication analyzed and evaluated the recordsdata over six months. Alongside revealing that Tesla refused to reply an inventory of questions despatched to them by Handelsblatt journalists, Matthes mentioned: “The info paints the image of an electrical automobile pioneer who appears to have far higher technological issues than beforehand identified.”

In response, Tesla tells Elektrek that it’ll provoke authorized proceedings towards a “disgruntled ex-employee” for the “theft of Tesla confidential info and workers’ private knowledge.” In keeping with the electrical automobile maker, the so-called Tesla Information have been shared with the newspaper in “violation of Tesla’s non-disclosure agreements and insurance policies, knowledge administration insurance policies and practices, and EU and German legislation.”