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Tesla said it didn't have key data in a fatal crash, then a hacker found it

(www.washingtonpost.com)
650 points clcaev | 4 comments | 29 Aug 25 11:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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metaphor ◴[29 Aug 25 12:25 UTC] No.45063162[source]▶
> Immediately after the wreck at 9:14 p.m. on April 25, 2019, the crucial data detailing how it unfolded was automatically uploaded to the company’s servers and stored in a vast central database, according to court documents. Tesla’s headquarters soon sent an automated message back to the car confirming that it had received the collision snapshot.

> Moments later, court records show, the data was just as automatically “unlinked” from the 2019 Tesla Model S at the scene, meaning the local copy was marked for deletion, a standard practice for Teslas in such incidents, according to court testimony.

Wow...just wow.

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ryandvm ◴[29 Aug 25 13:38 UTC] No.45063980[source]▶
It is wild to me that people put so much trust in this company.

Even if Tesla hadn't squandered it's EV lead and was instead positioned to be a robotics and AI superpower, is this really the corporate behavior you would want? This is some fucking Aperture Science level corporate malfeasance.

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flatline ◴[29 Aug 25 13:55 UTC] No.45064185[source]▶
It’s pretty typical of corporations, the cult surrounding its leader notwithstanding. Not even just US corporations - the VW emissions scandal was huge, and today they are doing as well as ever. That was a big shakeup; the kind of stuff we are seeing from Tesla feels like business as usual.
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estearum ◴[29 Aug 25 14:14 UTC] No.45064425{3}[source]▶
No, it's not typical, because you don't see huge numbers of people defending VW's emissions fraud.
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1. SoftTalker ◴[29 Aug 25 14:49 UTC] No.45064886{4}[source]▶
I don't defend it but the specifics never bothered me. They cheated because their cars didn't meet new emissions standards. They were fine by the standards of the year before. So a bureaucracy just declared that a legal level of emissions was now illegal.

In my mind it's like suddenly declaring that blue cars are illegal, and they made a color-shifting car that is blue except when the authorities are looking at it.

It is wrong in the sense that it is normalizion of deviance, however. We live in a society and if we don't like a law or regulation the correct response is to get it legally changed, not to ignore it and cheat.

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2. estearum ◴[29 Aug 25 14:54 UTC] No.45064953[source]▶
I didn't say you are defending it. I'm saying that "companies do bad things sometimes" is not a full description of the Tesla phenomenon that people take issue with.
3. dahinds ◴[29 Aug 25 16:45 UTC] No.45066403[source]▶
> They cheated because their cars didn't meet new emissions standards. They were fine by the standards of the year before.

> So a bureaucracy just declared that a legal level of emissions was now illegal.

That is not at all what happened and not how emissions standards are deployed. The EPA's Tier 2 standards were finalized in 2000 to phase in during the 2004-2008 model years [1].

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2000/02/10/00-19/c...

4. triceratops ◴[29 Aug 25 18:13 UTC] No.45067541[source]▶
> They cheated because their cars didn't meet new emissions standards

Anything beyond the first two words in that sentence is irrelevant.