Internal documents that embarrass Tesla. Handelsblatt’s investigation into Autopilot’s many problems

A German newspaper has obtained more than 100GB of internal Tesla documents, including thousands of complaints about semi-autonomous driving malfunctions.

German language newspaper Handelsblatt he said he received it 100GB of data from “several whistleblowers” inside Teslawhich shows that the company has received thousands of complaints about its works Automatic in the last few years. According to Jalopnik, a well-known automotive website, the material includes more than 23,000 internal files, with complaints covering the period from 2015 to March 2022.

During this period, the manufacturer would receive reports about 2400 claims and problemsspeeding up of its vehicles, there are also 1500 reports of brake performance problems. If we go more specifically, in the last group we also find 139 complaints for periods which emergency brake occurred unintentionally and for no reason and 383 other incidents where the car stopped suddenly due to false alarm (car has detected a non-existent obstacle).

The files also include 1,000 reports of multiple road accidents, as well as a spreadsheet containing more than 3,000 reports of safety problems with Autopilot, Tesla’s advanced vehicle assistance system. The majority of reports come from the United States, while only a small proportion of complaints and reports come from customers in Europe or Asia.

The German newspaper managed to contact dozens of different customers, who confirmed that they had indeed filed the report, and insisted that they experienced the problems described in the report. In some cases, contacted customers have provided Handelsblatt with video evidence of their testimony.

The materials also included a handbook from Tesla explaining to customers how to handle complaints. For example, the company will instruct employees not to copy or paste incident reports into emails sent to customers, let alone any other type of text message; employees – the manual reads – must even give a potentially embarrassing message to Tesla by voicemail. This information must be transmitted verbally over the phone – a little because there is little chance that the effect will remain.

“The figures paint a picture of what the pioneers of the electric car seem to have technological problems worse than previously known. And its Autopilot, for example. Tesla’s files contain thousands of problem reports and driver assistance systems. Complaints about Tesla cars hitting the brakes suddenly at high speeds. Or that suddenly accelerates”, wrote the director of Handelsblatt, explaining why he chose to publish the investigation in his newspaper.