Huge Tesla data leak reportedly reveals thousands of safety complaints. 4 things to know

For years, technical problems with Tesla’s Autopilot system have been blamed for causing crashes. A huge data dump based on a whistleblower’s leak of internal Tesla documents shows that problems with Tesla’s automated driving technology may be far more common than media reports and regulators have let on, according to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, which published an article about it Thursday. In an article titled “ ‘My autopilot almost killed me,’ ” Handelsblatt said it received 100 gigabytes of data and 23,000 files including 3,000 entries about customers’ safety concerns and descriptions of more than 1,000 crashes. When confronted about the leak and the safety concerns, Handelsblatt says, Tesla lawyers demanded the news organization send the company a copy of the data and delete all other copies, and said that Tesla planned to take legal action “for the theft of confidential and personal data.” 4. In 2021, NHTSA dismissed similar customer complaints about unintended acceleration and blamed “driver error.” Several of the U.S. safety regulator’s investigations into Tesla have been continuing for years, including an inquiry into an apparent tendency for Tesla cars to crash into firetrucks, ambulances and police cars parked on highways with their lights flashing.