The terrifying truth about why Tesla's cars keep crashing
10 months ago
- #Tesla
- #Autopilot
- #Safety
- Rita Meier's husband, Stefan, died in a Tesla Model S crash in 2018, with the car bursting into flames and rescue attempts failing due to retracted door handles.
- Tesla's autopilot system, marketed as 'Full Self-Driving,' has been linked to thousands of complaints, including unintended acceleration and phantom braking incidents.
- Internal Tesla documents, known as the Tesla Files, reveal over 2,400 complaints about unintended acceleration and 1,500 braking issues, with many crashes documented.
- Tesla's retractable door handles, a design insisted upon by Elon Musk, have been linked to multiple fatal accidents where rescuers couldn't access the vehicles.
- Independent researchers uncovered 'Elon Mode,' a hidden setting allowing full autonomous driving without driver intervention, and found Tesla stores data in three locations: onboard computer, event data recorder, and Tesla servers.
- Tesla has been criticized for withholding crash data from investigators, with cases like Stefan Meier's and Oliver Schuster's marked as 'resolved' internally without providing data to authorities.
- The NHTSA found gaps in Tesla's telematic data, making it impossible to determine autopilot's role in many crashes, and documented cases where autopilot disengaged just before impact.
- Elon Musk's vision of autonomous driving relies on continuous data collection from Tesla vehicles, but the company has been accused of withholding critical data from public scrutiny.
- Tesla's data collection capabilities were showcased in a 2025 incident where a Cybertruck explosion was quickly analyzed, revealing the extent of Tesla's surveillance.
- Critics argue Tesla's data practices are opaque, with the company deciding what data is relevant and often withholding information from investigators and victims' families.