May 25, 2023 - 7:00 p.m
Berlin, Düsseldorf, New York, Tokyo. Building self-driving vehicles is for Teslaa question of existence. CEO Elon Musk said in June 2022 that developing a functioning autopilot would determine “whether Tesla is worth a lot of money or practically zero.”
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Insiders have leaked 100 gigabytes of data to Handelsblatt, which are said to have come from Tesla's IT system. They suggest that the car manufacturer has greater technical problems than previously thought. Tesla speaks of data theft.
The Tesla files contain more than 2,400 complaints about self-acceleration and more than 1,500 problems with braking functions, including 139 cases of unwanted emergency braking and 383 reported phantom braking as a result of false collision warnings. The number of crashes is more than 1,000. A table of incidents involving driving assistance systems in which customers expressed safety concerns contains more than 3,000 entries.
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The Tesla continued to accelerate. According to the data, the accelerator pedal registered a pressure of 95 percent when the car hit the rear of a Toyota Sienna. Brown drove off the highway, reportedly without braking. When the Tesla raced toward the intersection and crashed into the Toyota Tundra, the accelerator pedal reported that it was 100 percent depressed
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One of them made headlines in January 2023. The reason was Ashok Elluswamy's statement about a fatal Tesla accident. Elluswamy, the head of software development for Tesla's Autopilot, was asked about a 2016 commercial.
The clip showed a Model X seemingly driving completely autonomously through California. At the beginning, Tesla displayed in white letters on a black background: “The person in the driver's seat is only sitting there for legal reasons. He doesn’t do anything, the car drives itself.”
During his interrogation, Elluswamy stated that Tesla's Autopilot team designed and recorded a "demonstration of the system's capabilities" at Musk's request. But there were problems.
During tests, the driver had to intervene several times to avoid accidents. Tesla has decided to take precautionary measures. The car ended up traveling on a predetermined route, Elluswamy said. A parking scene in which the car drove into a fence was also cut out.
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On February 16, 2023, the US transportation authority NHTSA asked Tesla to update 362,000 cars with the FSD software. The agency said problems with the system “increase the risk of an accident.” It is possible that the cars exceed the speed limit on their own and drive in an “unlawful or unpredictable manner” – for example “through an intersection”.
The Handelsblatt has a presumably internal presentation from May 2018. It is part of the Tesla files and apparently shows how an engineer lists problem areas for his colleagues during an error analysis. There were therefore ten categories. The most sensitive ones included unintentional braking and acceleration of vehicles. This affects “the safe operation of the vehicle,” the presentation says. Next to it is the note: “Dangerous – direct risk to the safety of the customer without warning.”
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Tesla has long used a front radar with a lower resolution. For the system there was “a car in front of me – yes or no”, nothing in between, says Zimmermann. When the car went around a tight curve, the radar no longer saw the car in front and accelerated.
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In May 2021, Tesla removed the radar sensor. The task of traffic monitoring is now only carried out by the cameras installed in the car. Artificial intelligence evaluates your videos in real time, compares the data with maps and data from other Tesla vehicles and gives the system appropriate driving instructions. Zimmermann says that the problem with acceleration is likely to get smaller with every new car.
The data from the Tesla files also suggests this. Since the company has started using the cameras, it has apparently happened less often that the cars accelerate on their own. But while complaints about unwanted acceleration in the data package decreased, a new phenomenon emerged: phantom braking.
Do I trust any of these things, no, I just accept them and that there is a good amount of risk for the convenience. A bit like keyless entry, you know it's the easiest way to steal many cars but man does it make life easier, for the thieves too.