←back to thread

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

(www.washingtonpost.com)
650 points clcaev | 2 comments | 29 Aug 25 11:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
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.

replies(5): >>45063302 #>>45063632 #>>45063687 #>>45063980 #>>45064115 #
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 ◴[29 Aug 25 12:39 UTC] No.45063302[source]▶
I am trying to imagine a scenario under which that is defensible and does not raise various questions including compliance, legal, retention. Not to mention, who were the people who put that code into production knowing it would do that.

edit: My point is that it was not one lone actor, who would have made that change.

replies(3): >>45063366 #>>45063389 #>>45064252 #
colejohnson66 ◴[29 Aug 25 12:43 UTC] No.45063366[source]▶
Assuming no malice, I'd guess it's for space saving on the car's internal memory. If the data was uploaded off of the car, there’s no point keeping it in the car.
replies(5): >>45063520 #>>45063627 #>>45064037 #>>45064183 #>>45065363 #
1. ajross ◴[29 Aug 25 15:26 UTC] No.45065363[source]▶
In point of fact eMMC wear failure was an actual bug in early Tesla MCUs. They were logging too much, so when the car reached (via routine use) a certain fill level the logging started running over the same storage again and again and the chips started failing.

It's very easy to imagine a response to this being (beyond "don't log so much") an audit layer to start automatically removing redundant data.

The externalities of the company are such that people want to ascribe malice, but this is a very routine kind of thing.

replies(1): >>45066711 #
2. A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 ◴[29 Aug 25 17:09 UTC] No.45066711[source]▶
This, I think, was the argument that seems most plausible to me ( without ascribing malice ). It brings its own set of issues, but even those issues make it more believable despite being problematic in their own right.