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The fact that Tesla doesn't have a process for making crash data available to investigators is pretty indefensible IMO, given they're retaining that data for th

The fact that Tesla doesn't have a process for making crash data available to investigators is pretty indefensible IMO, given they're retaining that data for their own analysis. Would be one thing if they didn't save the data for privacy reasons, but if they have it, and there's a valid subpoena, they obviously need to hand it over. For context though, note that this crash occurred because the driver was speeding, using 2019 autopilot (not FSD) on a city street (where it wasn't designed to be used), bending down to pick up a phone he dropped on the floor, and had his foot on the gas overriding the automatic braking: https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in-fatal-autopilot-crash-has-to-pay-329-million/ https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in... The crash itself was certainly not Tesla's fault, so I'm not sure why they were stonewalling. I think there's a good chance this was just plain old incompetence, not malice.

simion314 1y ago
The article claims that the software should have been geo fensed in that area but Tesla failed to do that, that the software should have trigger warnings of collisions but it did not do that. So there were things Tesla wanted to hide.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree, but I personally find these "but you theoretically could have done even more to prevent this"-type arguments to be a little dubious in cases where the harm was caused primarily by operator negligence. I do like the idea of incentivizing companies to take all reasonable steps to protect people from shooting themselves in the foot, but what counts as "reasonable" is also pretty subjective, and liability for having a different opinion about what's "reasonable" seems to me to be a little capricious. For example, the system did have a mechanism for reacting to potential collisions. The vehicle operator overrode it by pushing the gas pedal. But the jury still thinks Tesla is still to blame because they didn't also program an obnoxious alarm to go off in that situation? I suppose that might have been helpful in this particular situation. But exactly how far should they legally have to go in order to not be liable for someone else's stupidity?
  - simion314 1y ago
    >I don't necessarily disagree, but I personally find these "but you theoretically could have done even more to prevent this"-type arguments to be a little dubious in cases where the harm was caused primarily by operator negligence. The article says that soem government agency demanded Tesla to actually geofense the areas Tesla claims their software is incapable to handle. I am not a Tesla owner and did not read the small fonts manual, do Tesla reserve the rights that they might also not sound the alarm when the car is going at speed straight into an other car while a driver is not having the hands on the wheel? sounds bad, the driver is not steering, the car is driving on an area where it is incapable of driving still and it is heading into a obstacle and the alarm is not sounding (still from the article it seemed like this was a glitch that they were trying to hide, and that this was not supposed to happen) Anyway Tesla was forced to show the data, they did tried to hide it, so even if fanboys will attempt to put the blame `100% on the driver the jurry and Tesla 's actions tell us that the software did not function as adevertised.
kibwen 1y ago
> I think there's a good chance this was just plain old incompetence, not malice. The meme of Hanlon's Razor needs to die. Incompetence from a position of power is malice, period.
- sorokod 1y ago
  As a codendeced variant, yes. A bit more nuanced version is that incompetence from a position of power is a choice.
  - Ajedi32 1y ago
    That seems contrary to my experience. Large, powerful bureaucracies are often highly incompetent in ways that clearly work against their own interests. If it were merely a choice they wouldn't choose to be incompetent in those ways. I guess you could go even more nuanced and say sometimes incompetence from a position of power is a choice, and I would agree with that, but now the statement seems so watered down as to be almost meaningless.
    - mdhb 1y ago
      I feel like this is getting far too abstract to the point that you’re actively losing sight of a very real, very concrete and very specific set of actions they took which don’t appear to have any credible and innocent motives but also happen to perfectly align with why by all reasonable definitions would be considered malicious.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - danaris 1y ago
      Large companies in the US, especially at the current moment in history, have huge amounts of power vested in individual executives. If those executives valued not being incompetent in any specific given way (especially in the ways that harm the many), they have the power to change that. They can say "no, we need to make sure this never happens again." The fact that they choose not to do that, in so, so many cases, has a variety of causes, but in the end what it fundamentally boils down to is that they choose not to do it.
cnst 1y ago
> https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in-fatal-autopilot-crash-has-to-pay-329-million/ https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in... > Update: Tesla’s lawyers sent us the following comment about the verdict: > Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility. --- Personally, I don't understand how people can possibly be happy with such verdicts. Recently in 2025, DJI got rid of their geofences as well, because it's the operator's responsibility to control their equipment. IIRC, DJI did have support of the FAA in their actions of removing the geofencing limitations. With FAA expressly confirming that geofencing is not mandated. These sorts of verdicts that blame the manufacturer for operator errors, are exactly why we can't have nice things. It's why we get WiFi and 5G radios, and boot loaders, that are binary-locked, with no source code availability, and which cannot be used with BSD or Linux easily, and why it's not possible to override anything anywhere anymore. Even as a pedestrian, I'm glad that Tesla is fighting the good fight here. Because next thing I know, these courts will cause the phone manufacturers to disable your phone if you're walking next to a highway.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
  I agree. This hurts competent people who want to have responsibility and the freedom that brings.
  - addaon 1y ago
    > This hurts competent people who want to have responsibility and the freedom that brings. Perhaps, but does it hurt more or less than getting life-changing injuries and your partner killed by a Tesla?
michael1999 1y ago
The article explains that the crash snapshot shows: - hands off wheel - autosteer had the steering wheel despite a geofence flag - no take-over warnings, despite approaching a T intersection at speed Letting people use autopilot in unsafe conditions is contributory negligence. Given their marketing, that's more than worth 33% of the fault. That they hid this data tells me everything I need to know about their approach to safety. Although nothing really new considering how publicly deceitful Musk is about his fancy cruise-control.
- cnst 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - avidiax 1y ago
    No aircraft manufacturer is misleading the pilots around their automation capabilities.* Pilots have to go through extensive training, including type certification on the plane they will fly. They are acutely aware of limitations. When anything does go wrong, there is a thorough and public postmortem, with legally binding findings and mitigations. For Tesla, anyone that can read the one sentence description of enabling autopilot (double tap the stalk) can use it in any condition, without any special training, and the company will stonewall any accident investigation. The entire term "full self driving" is just "puffery". * Yes, MCAS, but this is not an autopilot/autodrive system, and Boeing is in trouble for this.
    - cnst 1y ago
      I mean, to get a driver's licence, you also have to go through an extensive training and pass a test, including a test on the type of car you drive. If you're involved in a crash, you're also held legally responsible. The nagging if you're not paying attention during Autopilot or FSD, came a long way from 2019, too. Why aren't the cruise-control vendors fined with quarter-billion dollar fines for anyone who mistook the marketing of the feature as controlling the cruise, e.g., because the name was misleading? Cruise control, it means, I just press the button, and relax, right? That's what the sales person told me! Why did the car veer off the highway? Why are they calling it cruise control when it doesn't control the cruise? There should have been a different name for this super-misleading feature!
shreezus 1y ago
I own a Tesla, and here's my take on the biggest software issue: Normal consumers don't understand the difference between "Autopilot" and "FSD". FSD will stop at intersections/lights etc - Autopilot is basically just cruise control and should generally only be used on highways. They're activated in the same manner (FSD replaces Autopilot if you pay for the upgrade or $99/month subscription), and again for "normal" consumers it's not always entirely clear. A friend of mine rented a Tesla recently and was in for a surprise when the vehicle did not automatically stop at intersections on Autopilot. He said the previous one he rented had FSD enabled, and he didn't understand the difference. IMO Tesla just needs to phase out 2019 AP entirely and just give everyone some version of FSD (even if it's limited), or geofence AP to highways only.
- cnst 1y ago
  In my experience, even most Tesla owners don't really seem to understand the difference between autopilot or FSD. However, even though Autopilot doesn't obey traffic control devices, it still DOES issue warnings if taking over may be required. Most Tesla owners I've talked with, are actually completely unaware of the v12 and v13 improvements to FSD, and generally have the car for other reasons than FSD. So, if anything, Tesla is actually quite behind on marketing FSD to the regular folk, even those who are already Tesla owners.
  - enslavedrobot 1y ago
    Not in 2019 it didn't.
- Runsthroughit 1y ago
  Why is that so though? Because of false marketing to the degree that is criminal. Elon does have one excuse: Tesla would be bankrupt several times over except for his purposeful criminal lies. Does he actually care about the company? He pumped out OOM more value from Tesla than anyone in history of any company. That is how much he cares about company surviving. Criminal. And too dum* to think of anything innovative to save the company.
- account42 1y ago
LorenPechtel 1y ago
The fundamental problem here is that the way it's presented caused the driver to trust it in a fashion he should not have. The jury slammed Tesla for overpromising, and for trying to hide the evidence.
givemeethekeys 1y ago
They shouldn't give anything to the cops. If the driver is 100% liable without autopilot, then they should be held 100% liable with autopilot. The law should be clear and unambiguous in this regard until we remove the steering wheel entirely. The penalties for being at fault with auto pilot on should be even higher, since it may as well be just as bad as driving while texting!
- mafuy 1y ago
  No. If they were allowed to just say "We did nothing wrong" to not have to cooperate with an investigation, it would open the door to trivial abuse. It is reasonable to assume they are at least partially to blame. Just like a regular citizen can be arrested when they have a backpack full of money an hour after a bank robbery happened, because it is a reasonable asumption, Tesla should be submitted to an investigation until it becomes clear that the backpack's content is legit.
  - thedrexster 1y ago
    <<a backpack full of money an hour after a bank robbery happened> yeah, man, IANAL, but just having money in a backpack isn't probable cause without specific facts tying that backpack to that bank robbery, and I don't think your analogy holds.
    - mafuy 1y ago
      I'm not in the least a fan of police overreach, but if a bank gets robbed and you are in the vicinity directly afterwards with a ton of cash in hand, I'd say that consitutes probable cause to at least look into what's going on. I would be angry if in that situation the suspect were let go without investigation.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  How are investigators supposed to determine the "100% liable" without access to all available data? In a typical RTC, police will seek to obtain dashcam footage from other vehicles to determine what happened and then determine liability (more likely the insurance companies or courts).
moogly 1y ago
> The fact that Tesla doesn't have a process for making crash data available to investigators Perhaps hiding the data like this _is_ their process.
bsder 1y ago
> I think there's a good chance this was just plain old incompetence, not malice. If you or I did this, do you think a judge would care? No. We would be sitting in jail with a significant fine to boot. The point is that these businesses consider this a "cost of doing business" until someone is actually put in jail.
Epicism 1y ago
That’s not the point. The point is if Teslas marketing led the driver to over estimate the car’s capabilities leading to him engaging in reckless behavior. He admitted on the stand that he was acting careless, that autonomous mode required supervision; however, he also admitted that he thought that the car would drive better than a human and intervene when required _based_ on Tesla’s marketing. When you look at Musk’s tweets and the Paint it Black video the jury agreed that it was not an unreasonable belief that was factually _not_ true and found Tesla 33% guilty of the accident. The fact that Tesla purposely mislead the investigators and hid evidence was why the jury awarded such a large sum.
account42 1y ago
> The crash itself was certainly not Tesla's fault Mixing up who is responsible for driving the car is very much Tesla's fault, starting with their dishonest marketing.
- Sparyjerry 1y ago
  If the driver is literally pressing the gas pedal while not looking at the road and overriding Autopilot then it is very much the drivers fault.

simion314 1y ago

The article claims that the software should have been geo fensed in that area but Tesla failed to do that, that the software should have trigger warnings of collisions but it did not do that. So there were things Tesla wanted to hide.

Ajedi32 1y ago
I don't necessarily disagree, but I personally find these "but you theoretically could have done even more to prevent this"-type arguments to be a little dubious in cases where the harm was caused primarily by operator negligence. I do like the idea of incentivizing companies to take all reasonable steps to protect people from shooting themselves in the foot, but what counts as "reasonable" is also pretty subjective, and liability for having a different opinion about what's "reasonable" seems to me to be a little capricious. For example, the system did have a mechanism for reacting to potential collisions. The vehicle operator overrode it by pushing the gas pedal. But the jury still thinks Tesla is still to blame because they didn't also program an obnoxious alarm to go off in that situation? I suppose that might have been helpful in this particular situation. But exactly how far should they legally have to go in order to not be liable for someone else's stupidity?
- simion314 1y ago
  >I don't necessarily disagree, but I personally find these "but you theoretically could have done even more to prevent this"-type arguments to be a little dubious in cases where the harm was caused primarily by operator negligence. The article says that soem government agency demanded Tesla to actually geofense the areas Tesla claims their software is incapable to handle. I am not a Tesla owner and did not read the small fonts manual, do Tesla reserve the rights that they might also not sound the alarm when the car is going at speed straight into an other car while a driver is not having the hands on the wheel? sounds bad, the driver is not steering, the car is driving on an area where it is incapable of driving still and it is heading into a obstacle and the alarm is not sounding (still from the article it seemed like this was a glitch that they were trying to hide, and that this was not supposed to happen) Anyway Tesla was forced to show the data, they did tried to hide it, so even if fanboys will attempt to put the blame `100% on the driver the jurry and Tesla 's actions tell us that the software did not function as adevertised.

kibwen 1y ago

> I think there's a good chance this was just plain old incompetence, not malice. The meme of Hanlon's Razor needs to die. Incompetence from a position of power is malice, period.

sorokod 1y ago
As a codendeced variant, yes. A bit more nuanced version is that incompetence from a position of power is a choice.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  That seems contrary to my experience. Large, powerful bureaucracies are often highly incompetent in ways that clearly work against their own interests. If it were merely a choice they wouldn't choose to be incompetent in those ways. I guess you could go even more nuanced and say sometimes incompetence from a position of power is a choice, and I would agree with that, but now the statement seems so watered down as to be almost meaningless.
  - mdhb 1y ago
    I feel like this is getting far too abstract to the point that you’re actively losing sight of a very real, very concrete and very specific set of actions they took which don’t appear to have any credible and innocent motives but also happen to perfectly align with why by all reasonable definitions would be considered malicious.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - danaris 1y ago
    Large companies in the US, especially at the current moment in history, have huge amounts of power vested in individual executives. If those executives valued not being incompetent in any specific given way (especially in the ways that harm the many), they have the power to change that. They can say "no, we need to make sure this never happens again." The fact that they choose not to do that, in so, so many cases, has a variety of causes, but in the end what it fundamentally boils down to is that they choose not to do it.

cnst 1y ago

> https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in-fatal-autopilot-crash-has-to-pay-329-million/ https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/tesla-tsla-is-found-liable-in... > Update: Tesla’s lawyers sent us the following comment about the verdict: > Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility. --- Personally, I don't understand how people can possibly be happy with such verdicts. Recently in 2025, DJI got rid of their geofences as well, because it's the operator's responsibility to control their equipment. IIRC, DJI did have support of the FAA in their actions of removing the geofencing limitations. With FAA expressly confirming that geofencing is not mandated. These sorts of verdicts that blame the manufacturer for operator errors, are exactly why we can't have nice things. It's why we get WiFi and 5G radios, and boot loaders, that are binary-locked, with no source code availability, and which cannot be used with BSD or Linux easily, and why it's not possible to override anything anywhere anymore. Even as a pedestrian, I'm glad that Tesla is fighting the good fight here. Because next thing I know, these courts will cause the phone manufacturers to disable your phone if you're walking next to a highway.

ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
I agree. This hurts competent people who want to have responsibility and the freedom that brings.
- addaon 1y ago
  > This hurts competent people who want to have responsibility and the freedom that brings. Perhaps, but does it hurt more or less than getting life-changing injuries and your partner killed by a Tesla?

michael1999 1y ago

The article explains that the crash snapshot shows: - hands off wheel - autosteer had the steering wheel despite a geofence flag - no take-over warnings, despite approaching a T intersection at speed Letting people use autopilot in unsafe conditions is contributory negligence. Given their marketing, that's more than worth 33% of the fault. That they hid this data tells me everything I need to know about their approach to safety. Although nothing really new considering how publicly deceitful Musk is about his fancy cruise-control.

cnst 1y ago
[flagged]
- avidiax 1y ago
  No aircraft manufacturer is misleading the pilots around their automation capabilities.* Pilots have to go through extensive training, including type certification on the plane they will fly. They are acutely aware of limitations. When anything does go wrong, there is a thorough and public postmortem, with legally binding findings and mitigations. For Tesla, anyone that can read the one sentence description of enabling autopilot (double tap the stalk) can use it in any condition, without any special training, and the company will stonewall any accident investigation. The entire term "full self driving" is just "puffery". * Yes, MCAS, but this is not an autopilot/autodrive system, and Boeing is in trouble for this.
  - cnst 1y ago
    I mean, to get a driver's licence, you also have to go through an extensive training and pass a test, including a test on the type of car you drive. If you're involved in a crash, you're also held legally responsible. The nagging if you're not paying attention during Autopilot or FSD, came a long way from 2019, too. Why aren't the cruise-control vendors fined with quarter-billion dollar fines for anyone who mistook the marketing of the feature as controlling the cruise, e.g., because the name was misleading? Cruise control, it means, I just press the button, and relax, right? That's what the sales person told me! Why did the car veer off the highway? Why are they calling it cruise control when it doesn't control the cruise? There should have been a different name for this super-misleading feature!

shreezus 1y ago

I own a Tesla, and here's my take on the biggest software issue: Normal consumers don't understand the difference between "Autopilot" and "FSD". FSD will stop at intersections/lights etc - Autopilot is basically just cruise control and should generally only be used on highways. They're activated in the same manner (FSD replaces Autopilot if you pay for the upgrade or $99/month subscription), and again for "normal" consumers it's not always entirely clear. A friend of mine rented a Tesla recently and was in for a surprise when the vehicle did not automatically stop at intersections on Autopilot. He said the previous one he rented had FSD enabled, and he didn't understand the difference. IMO Tesla just needs to phase out 2019 AP entirely and just give everyone some version of FSD (even if it's limited), or geofence AP to highways only.

cnst 1y ago
In my experience, even most Tesla owners don't really seem to understand the difference between autopilot or FSD. However, even though Autopilot doesn't obey traffic control devices, it still DOES issue warnings if taking over may be required. Most Tesla owners I've talked with, are actually completely unaware of the v12 and v13 improvements to FSD, and generally have the car for other reasons than FSD. So, if anything, Tesla is actually quite behind on marketing FSD to the regular folk, even those who are already Tesla owners.
- enslavedrobot 1y ago
  Not in 2019 it didn't.
Runsthroughit 1y ago
Why is that so though? Because of false marketing to the degree that is criminal. Elon does have one excuse: Tesla would be bankrupt several times over except for his purposeful criminal lies. Does he actually care about the company? He pumped out OOM more value from Tesla than anyone in history of any company. That is how much he cares about company surviving. Criminal. And too dum* to think of anything innovative to save the company.
account42 1y ago

LorenPechtel 1y ago

The fundamental problem here is that the way it's presented caused the driver to trust it in a fashion he should not have. The jury slammed Tesla for overpromising, and for trying to hide the evidence.

givemeethekeys 1y ago

They shouldn't give anything to the cops. If the driver is 100% liable without autopilot, then they should be held 100% liable with autopilot. The law should be clear and unambiguous in this regard until we remove the steering wheel entirely. The penalties for being at fault with auto pilot on should be even higher, since it may as well be just as bad as driving while texting!

mafuy 1y ago
No. If they were allowed to just say "We did nothing wrong" to not have to cooperate with an investigation, it would open the door to trivial abuse. It is reasonable to assume they are at least partially to blame. Just like a regular citizen can be arrested when they have a backpack full of money an hour after a bank robbery happened, because it is a reasonable asumption, Tesla should be submitted to an investigation until it becomes clear that the backpack's content is legit.
- thedrexster 1y ago
  <<a backpack full of money an hour after a bank robbery happened> yeah, man, IANAL, but just having money in a backpack isn't probable cause without specific facts tying that backpack to that bank robbery, and I don't think your analogy holds.
  - mafuy 1y ago
    I'm not in the least a fan of police overreach, but if a bank gets robbed and you are in the vicinity directly afterwards with a ton of cash in hand, I'd say that consitutes probable cause to at least look into what's going on. I would be angry if in that situation the suspect were let go without investigation.
ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
How are investigators supposed to determine the "100% liable" without access to all available data? In a typical RTC, police will seek to obtain dashcam footage from other vehicles to determine what happened and then determine liability (more likely the insurance companies or courts).

moogly 1y ago

> The fact that Tesla doesn't have a process for making crash data available to investigators Perhaps hiding the data like this _is_ their process.

bsder 1y ago

> I think there's a good chance this was just plain old incompetence, not malice. If you or I did this, do you think a judge would care? No. We would be sitting in jail with a significant fine to boot. The point is that these businesses consider this a "cost of doing business" until someone is actually put in jail.

Epicism 1y ago

That’s not the point. The point is if Teslas marketing led the driver to over estimate the car’s capabilities leading to him engaging in reckless behavior. He admitted on the stand that he was acting careless, that autonomous mode required supervision; however, he also admitted that he thought that the car would drive better than a human and intervene when required _based_ on Tesla’s marketing. When you look at Musk’s tweets and the Paint it Black video the jury agreed that it was not an unreasonable belief that was factually _not_ true and found Tesla 33% guilty of the accident. The fact that Tesla purposely mislead the investigators and hid evidence was why the jury awarded such a large sum.

account42 1y ago

> The crash itself was certainly not Tesla's fault Mixing up who is responsible for driving the car is very much Tesla's fault, starting with their dishonest marketing.

Sparyjerry 1y ago
If the driver is literally pressing the gas pedal while not looking at the road and overriding Autopilot then it is very much the drivers fault.