“Tesla-Files”: Data leak is said to reveal massive problems with Tesla’s autopilot

The Handelsblatt has 100 gigabytes of data that should come from Tesla. They were leaked to the newspaper by informants.

Tesla’s “Autopilot” driver assistance system is said to cause significantly more problems than previously known. This should emerge from data that the Handelsblatt says it was fed by informants. According to the Handelsblatt, the 23,000 files totaling around 100 gigabytes include personal data from the Tesla workforce as well as customer complaints and descriptions of more than a thousand accidents.

What the newspaper calls the Tesla files contain more than 2,400 complaints about self-acceleration and more than 1,500 problems with braking functions. Among them are 139 cases of unwanted emergency braking and 383 phantom braking after false collision warnings. “The number of crashes is more than 1,000. A table of incidents with driver assistance systems where customers expressed safety concerns has more than 3,000 entries,” the report says.

Oldest complaint eight years old

The oldest complaints are said to date from 2015, the most recent from March 2022. Most of the incidents in the documents took place in the USA, there are also complaints from Europe and Asia – including many from German Tesla drivers. According to the Handelsblatt, it has contacted some customers in several countries, who are said to have confirmed the information from the “Tesla files”, and some individual cases are described in the report.

Accidents that may be related to Tesla’s “Autopilot” are a recurring theme, particularly when they result in people being killed and left in court. In previous proceedings in the USA involving claims for damages, the plaintiffs accuse Tesla of not working reliably with its driver assistance system. Tesla, in turn, points out that the vehicle drivers are required to be able to control the vehicle at any time. In April of this year, a court ruled in a trial over a fatal accident involving a Tesla that its boss Elon Musk must testify.

According to the Handelsblatt, the US traffic safety agency NHTSA has been informed of 367 accidents involving a car with an activated driver assistance system between July 2021 and May 2022. A Tesla vehicle was affected in almost 70 percent. Tesla leads the accident statistics with 273 cases, followed by the Japanese manufacturer Honda with 90 and Subaru with 10 vehicles.

data protection aspects
Before the Handelsblatt went public with its information, a team of twelve from the newspaper is said to have evaluated 1,388 PDF documents, 1,015 Excel spreadsheets and 213 PowerPoint presentations, as well as images, videos, audio files and e-mails for six months. Among them should also be a report on problems with the planned electric pickup Cybertruck.

According to its own statements, the Handelsblatt informed the Brandenburg data protection officer Dagmar Hartge. According to her, sensitive data could be widely accessible due to insufficient restrictions on access rights within the company. This is said to have confirmed to the Handelsblatt to “Insider”.

According to their lawyer Joseph Alm, Tesla wants to take legal action against a “disgruntled former employee” who abused his access as a service technician. It says in the report. Tesla is said to have already submitted a preliminary report to the Dutch data protection supervisory authority, which companies are obliged to do under the GDPR if there is a suspicion of data leakage.

“Careful Examination”

Tesla is also said to have threatened the Handelsblatt with legal consequences if the newspaper reported on information from the company. Tesla did not want to answer questions from the newspaper about the data itself, but rather asked the company to delete the data immediately.

After “careful examination and advice from internal and external legal counsel”, the editorial team decided to report on the “Tesla files”. She made “great effort” to check her authenticity. The newspaper turned on the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology for this. It found no evidence that “the data set does not come from Tesla’s IT systems or from its environment”. Tesla owners can check the Handelsblatt website to see if their data is affected by the leak…