Tesla Whistleblower Case Could be Serious

Leak of customer data alone makes Tesla liable for over $3 billion in German fines

A reputable German business journal, Handelsblatt, published an exposé of Tesla’s handling of thousands of complaints related to Autopilot and longtime safety issues, such as self-acceleration and even more.

The 100 gigabytes of data given to Handelsblatt by whistleblowers was analyzed—with third-party forensic assistance—by a 12-member team over a six-month period and dubbed “The Tesla Files”. Given the wide breadth of subjects within the files, yesterday’s long article is likely just the first part of a series to come. And it will likely encourages the US media to dig further into the situation.

Aside from the excellent reportage, the most interesting point about this epic scoop is its timing:

• The May 25th article coincides with two recent press interviews (on May 10th and 23rd) in which US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg made negative comments about Tesla’s Autopilot for the first time (see table below). The traffic safety agency he oversees is completing a two-year probe into crashes and deaths involving Tesla’s Autopilot system

• It also comes the day after Musk launched Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign on a Twitter Spaces (live audio stream) on May 24th

How the NHTSA’s Autopilot Probe is Unfolding

Before publishing their May 25th article, Handelsblatt emailed Tesla with their questions regarding the file on May 10th. Tesla responded to Handelsblatt by demanding they delete the files, reminding them that all information was protected under non-disclosure agreements.

As of now, there is news that Tesla is going to sue the whistleblowers (who are thought to be former Tesla IT employees with access to sensitive data), but Tesla has yet to make any legal claims against Handelsblatt. Given the amount of sensitive information in these files, it’s questionable whether Tesla would want it to become public in the German courts by sueing .

The logs of complaints and accidents in the file span between 2015 and March 2022 and are mostly from the US, but include incidents from Europe and Asia. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) started a probe into Tesla’s Autopilot crashes and deaths in July 2021 and is expected to be near to a ruling on whether or not to ask Tesla to issue a recall.

The reasons why Autopilot/FSD are under regulatory scrutiny are due to the escalation of accidents and mortalities related to Autopilot/FSD. For background on the subject, please refer to this February 23rd report here.

Below, are some key findings from Handelsblatt’s article that haven’t been in the news until now. But, it should be noted that, the most burning question is whether this massive data dump from within Tesla contains any accidents regarding Autopilot or other structural flaws that weren’t reported to the NHTSA before.

• 3,000 Autopilot Complaints: There was a table in the files with a list of 3,000 complaints related only to Tesla’s Autopilot. The file is said to have data ranging from 2015 through March 2022, during which time Tesla sold 2.6 million vehicles. NHTSA started its Autopilot probe in July 2021, and through March 2022, disclosed 215 Autopilot-related crashes. These are all self-reported by Tesla and it begs the question of whether there were any unreported crashes within the files.

• Thousands of Other Complaints Regarding Safety Issues: There were 2,400 complaints regarding self-acceleration, 1,500 regarding braking malfunctions, of which 139 included unintended emergency braking and another 383 tied to phantom braking (another Autopilot issue). In the face of any complaints like this, Tesla has always placed the blame on the driver, which is why there are many outstanding lawsuits in the US.

• Tesla’s Protocol of No Paper Trail with Safety Issues: Whenever Tesla employees had to log complaints about safety issues or accidents, they were told to mark it “For Internal Use Only”. When communicating with customers about any complaints, they were told to leave no paper trail. No copy and pasting and no using voicemails.

• Code Numbers for Complaints About Autopilot: The files contained over 1,000 complaints with code numbers for each specific Autopilot problem, such as “27973” for sudden unintended acceleration or “55538” for phantom braking (sudden braking on highways for no reason). There were even code numbers classifying whether the complaint was reported by the driver or the police.

• Technical Data on Factory Specs & Cybertruck Leaked: While Handelsblatt only disclosed details on the safety issue in the files, the files are said to also include data on Giga Berlin’s paint shop specs, battery line plans, presentations about axle suspension and details about the upcoming new model, Cybertruck.

• Massive Data Breach Includes Musk’s Personal Information: The data files include not only Musk’s social security number, but Tesla employees’ salaries, addresses and phone numbers, as well as customers’ bank details. Given the EU’s strict rules on personal data, it was reported that Tesla potentially faces fines there of around $3.26 billion. A Brandenburg data protection officer said that he couldn’t remember a data breach on such a scale.

The unveiling of all this internal information from Tesla could force the NHTSA to move quicker in deciding whether to issue a recall request to Tesla on Autopilot. This could entail not only full refunds for every Tesla car sold with Autopilot, but empower every lawsuit on Autopilot/FSD (there are currently 65 outstanding lawsuits in the US involving Autopilot/FSD)

Moreover, if Tesla’s internal data on sudden-unintended acceleration (SUA) does show that there were safety issues that were covered up by Tesla, this would be a massive embarrassment to the NHTSA. In January 2021, the NHTSA ruled that SUA accidents with Tesla cars were due to “driver error”.

This could make the NHTSA look as liable for enabling damage as Germany’s BaFin did in its handling of the Wirecard scandal in 2020.