Tesla seeks to guard crash data from public disclosure

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/musks-tesla-seeks-guard-crash-data-public-disclosure-2025-06-04/

by kklisura • 1 year ago

510 403 1 year ago

duxup3• 1 year ago

Unless there's a very good reason, if National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has it then the taxpayers who paid for it should have access too.

e44858• 1 year ago

Provided they release crash data for all manufacturers and don't single out just one manufacturer.

FireBeyond6• 1 year ago

Uhh, WaPo was requesting crash data from NHTSA on driver assistance systems. Tesla is the only manufacturer trying to prevent that disclosure.

duxup3• 1 year ago

I agree, although that's more about the request(er) than anything else.

ra73• 1 year ago

Crash data for all other ADAS systems is already public [1]. The only manufacturer with heavily redacted information in that data to the point of being useless is Tesla.

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-orde...

timewizard2• 1 year ago

The owner or their next of kin ostensibly should have it as well. It's disappointing that only the manufacturer and the NHTSA have easy access.

7e• 1 year ago

Public roads, public data. I want to know how at risk I am from all these Teslas around me.

FireBeyond6• 1 year ago

Reuters throwing shade:

Tesla is widely known for its so-called advanced driver-assistance systems, including Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD).

(emphasis mine)

ancillary• 1 year ago

It seems less like shade than precision about who's saying it's advanced.

JumpCrisscross7• 1 year ago

Tesla has rebranded its self-driving ambitions half a dozen times. (I’m honestly currently blanking on which of Robotaxi and Cybercab is the Level 4 product.) It’s fair to point out that “advanced driver-assistance” is another neologism of Musk’s, and not a term to be treated as comparable with other companies’ capabilities.

MBCook2• 1 year ago

ADAS is the industry standard term for things above basic cruise control isn’t it?

It’s not a term Musk dreamed up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_s...

jdminhbg• 1 year ago

This mostly just demonstrates that the reporter doesn’t know what they’re talking about. ADAS is a term of art that encompasses everything above dumb cruise control, including things like adaptive cruise control or collision detection.

MaxPock• 1 year ago

Musk would never hide something,would he ?

neuroelectron• 1 year ago

What, like his bank account number?

Havoc• 1 year ago

I guess they haven’t doge’d enough people to bury this

qingcharles• 1 year ago

He's at war with the gov now. He's on a mad tweet frenzy about burning up all the GOP reps that voted for the tax bill. They just doge'd his pick for NASA Administrator on the same day his black eye showed up. Get the popcorn.

morkalork• 1 year ago

This is interesting because the only thing keeping senators in line with Trump's bs before was the threat of a primary funded by Musk, how does he whip their votes now without that threat?

davidw• 1 year ago

Europe is shooting itself in the foot if they're not doing their damnedest to brain-drain as many scientists and engineers as they can while things implode here.

_DeadFred_2• 1 year ago

Funny he is suddenly 'at war' at the exact same time he was scheduled to leave government from the start (temporary employee limit) AND he had to go back to his companies and rehab his reputation. Super convenient timing and totally not theatrics/lies from the reality TV personality and the guy who said he wasn't donating to either presidential candidates this cycle right before buying Trump the election.

JumpCrisscross7• 1 year ago

Honestly still waiting for someone—could be Canada, the EU or California—to announce heightened approval standards for (or even a moratorium on) cameras-only self-driving cars on public streets.

moduspol5• 1 year ago

They kill a lot fewer people than the ones driven solely by humans.

jaggederest2• 1 year ago

Given the topic at hand, how do you know that? How is it possible to know that?

tw044• 1 year ago

Tesla has roughly 0.3% VIO TOTAL in the US (taking global statistics into account it's barely measurable), and a fraction of that fraction are actually using FSD on a regular basis - so I would sure hope they kill "a lot fewer people".

https://wolfstreet.com/2021/12/13/vehicles-in-operation-and-...

yatopifo• 1 year ago

I don’t think this is going to happen in Canada. It’s much easier for us to simply put tariffs on Tesla vehicles to further reduce their market share.

mosdl2• 1 year ago

Wife has a relative who was just (this weekend) in a major accident where a tesla ran into them and pushed their a ditch where it rolled a few times. Initial report says the Tesla was in self drive mode. Will be interesting to see who was at fault here but so far it is not looking good for Tesla.

andsoitis4• 1 year ago

ran into them and pushed their a ditch where it rolled a few times

that sounds rough; hopefully they're OK! did the car drive into them from the side or from behind?

where did it happen? googling "Tesla ditch self-driving accident" turns up nothing, but I would have thought it would have made the news.

gamblor9562• 1 year ago

Self driving Teslas getting into accidents is now so common that it is no longer news.

wskinner• 1 year ago

There are over 40,000 _fatal_ car crashes per year in the US, and a few orders of magnitude more non-fatal crashes. Most of them do not make the news.

jfoster4• 1 year ago

For stories like this, I think it's usually just a small sample that end up making the news.

mosdl2• 1 year ago

Happened in north carolina, but the incident is still being investigated according to the relative who is still in the hospital (luckily only major bruising, nothing broken, subarus are really good at rolling safety it turns out).

philosophty• 1 year ago

Seems like culpability should come down to whether or not the Telsa driver could have prevented the accident.

Although there's a good argument to be made that Tesla's entire system has fundamental design flaws which they have negligently disregarded.

irjustin4• 1 year ago

To me anything less than true level 4 should remain with the driver.

I also believe that marketing it as FSD should be liable and scrutinized as a level 4 system. Because when you hear FSD, the public naturally thinks the abilities marked in level 4 arguably even 5.

delichon• 1 year ago

Removing the steering wheel and pedals from the robotaxi is Tesla embracing culpability, whether they like it or not. If they are negligent and cannot claim human error they will face huge damage awards.

bumby8• 1 year ago

This is the same attitude that people used to try and avoid any culpability for Boeing in the 737-Max crashes. Even if they was a technical way to avoid a crash, it doesn’t avoid negligent or blatantly bad engineering practices. There’s a reason why engineers are expected to have an ethical duty to the public. Automakers get an industrial exemption on the assumption that the internal processes are sufficient to address the risk…What are we supposed to do when they aren’t?

zombiwoof• 1 year ago

It seems clear to me at least that Elon did a major pump of FSD, realized he was full of shit so got into politics to try to hack the system in his favor to hide the truth

naikrovek2• 1 year ago

Watch out for Tesla automobiles automatically turning off FSD just before impact so they can say that FSD was not in use at the time of impact.

I’ve heard rumors of that happening.

mindslight3• 1 year ago

Isn't that the whole point of levels 2 and 3? Fine print applied to the marketed operating modes of heavy equipment. Surprise, you were supposed to be driving!

LeoPanthera• 1 year ago

I hate Tesla as much as the next sane man, but this rumor is just a rumor. Tesla counts FSD (and Autopilot) as being "in use" during an accident if it was enabled at any time in the 10 seconds before the accident.

panick21_4• 1 year ago

Initial reports always claim Tesla was in self driving mode. I have seen that a number of times.

In one case there was a claim the driver was in the backseat. This got widely published in all media outlets. And turned out to be complete nonsense, it wasn't even in autopilot.

But of course it could be true but I would wait for the data.

jfoster4• 1 year ago

It's interesting that this is a case being brought by The Washington Post. The owner of WaPo is also the owner of Zoox. (Jeff Bezos)

nemothekid• 1 year ago

While I admit I shouldn't be defending Tesla for free - I've come to realize a lot of these "FSD crashed into me and Elon is hiding it!" claims usually come down to the user driving recklessly then using FSD as a get out of jail free card.

FSDs failures are either far more boring (imagining a stop sign) or put's the user in danger (driving onto train tracks).

bhhaskin• 1 year ago

Then the data would support that no?

jfoster4• 1 year ago

It is possible that Tesla wouldn't want positive data released. If their approach is trending positively, releasing the data would suggest to competitors that they should adopt the same approach.

duxup3• 1 year ago

The article is about Tesla not wanting the data out for everyone to see.

If that’s the case they should show it.

potato37328423• 1 year ago

Unless the data literally sings it from the tree tops less than honest people will pretend it says whatever they want it to say for clicks and eyeballs.

With how popular Musk is these days I can 100% where Tesla is coming from here.

myvoiceismypass• 1 year ago

You are arguing about / defending something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

The actual article is about how Tesla claims that providing this data would be a competitive disadvantage that rivals could use.

MBCook2• 1 year ago

Which is a very odd claim to try to make.

Would we accept Pfizer releasing a new pill without evidence?

“It’s better at preventing heart attacks than anything else. But we can’t show you data, that would hurt our competitive advantage.”

cowlby3• 1 year ago

As an anecdotal data point, I picked up a '24 Model 3 precisely for the self-driving capabilities. The difference between a Tesla running hardware/software HW3/v11 vs HW4/v12 was night and day.

Literally felt like the difference between flying a helicopter (actively trying to kill u lol) and an airplane.

I honestly did not get the hype until this specific HW4/v12 combination which didn't exist until last summer or so. It's the first time FSD felt like a safety feature for just $99 a month.

tw044• 1 year ago

I honestly did not get the hype until this specific HW4/v12 combination which didn't exist until last summer or so. It's the first time FSD felt like a safety feature for just $99 a month.

That's exactly the problem. It's great right until it isn't, at which point it's likely to make a decision that will kill you or someone else if you aren't lucky.

(most) Humans are REALLY good at paying attention to something that will actively kill them at any moment - you don't see a lot of people running a chainsaw while sending a text to their friend about drinks later in the day.

Humans are REALLY bad at stopping something they trust (IMO foolishly), with less than a half a second of notice, from killing them or someone else. It is completely natural to get lulled into a sense of security when something mostly works exactly as you'd expect.

Meanwhile Tesla wants to act as if it's the driver's fault anytime there's a crash without acknowledging they are actively perpetuating the myth of: "this thing drives itself". It's literally called "Full Self Driving" and Telsa expects the average person to look at that name and think: you need to be vigilant anytime you turn this on because it is a beta feature that may drive into oncoming traffic at any moment.

cowlby3• 1 year ago

Agreed, but you can't not pay attention with the new Vision Attention Monitoring. Not sure if it's HW4/v12 specific but it watches your eyesight specifically.

So for example, if I look at the screen, my phone, or start day-dreaming for even a few seconds, it'll beep and quickly strike me out from using FSD. "FSD (supervised)" is how it shows up in the UI too at least giving some expectation of it not being autonomous.

So in practice, I'm picturing the right driving inputs and watching what it's doing.

Gareth32112• 1 year ago

That's exactly the problem. It's great right until it isn't, at which point it's likely to make a decision that will kill you or someone else if you aren't lucky.

This should be weighed against the fallibility of human drivers, surely? Our point of comparison is not "perfect", it's "human." Inasmuch, with millions of miles driven, FSD appears to be many times safer than humans: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Tesla-Autopilot-and-FSD-are-no...

Not perfect, and there will be crashes, but much better, and I think that's the yard stick we should be using, because no system will ever be perfect.

CommenterPerson• 1 year ago

$99 per month?! For some half baked software? I need a car, not a parasite.

wat10000• 1 year ago

You can buy it outright if you prefer. Or you can just not buy it at all.

fastball7• 1 year ago

At this point, Tesla's FSD is almost certainly more "baked" than the vast majority of software you've ever used. The amount of engineering and compute time that have gone into it are colossal.

That said, something being excessively baked does not mean it is good.

beAbU• 1 year ago

safety feature for just $99 a month

Are you hearing yourself.

How can a "safety feature" be a subscription? Next they'll charge you a microtransaction every time you fasten your seatbelt?

hgomersall4• 1 year ago

Isn't that what Boeing did? We all know how that ended.

cowlby3• 1 year ago

They either have to bake it into the cost of the car or offer it as an option. I appreciate they offer all three options: don't purchase $0, purchase outright for $8,000, or subscribe for $99/month.

LightBug13• 1 year ago

No chance in hell I'd go near that ... good luck.

Alex_001• 1 year ago

It’s honestly hilarious that they think they deserve access to Tesla’s internal data just because users can view the software version on their own car. That’s like saying a public login screen means the whole system should be open-source. Tesla has every right to protect its own data — especially when it’s tied to proprietary tech and competitive edge. If regulators or media want deeper access, it should be done through proper agreements, not by demanding that confidential info be handed over. You can’t just expect to skip the hard work others have done.

ryukoposting2• 1 year ago

NHTSA reports crash data for every auto manufacturer. Tesla's is noteworthy for being heavily redacted.

the_optimist• 1 year ago

Quite oddly in the context of all these varied comments, this key claim is demonstrated as false.

NoPicklez15• 1 year ago

Yes it is a weak argument, but otherwise I disagree.

Data about a hitting a pedestrian or having an accident isn't proprietary tech. They're not asking for source code, but for data that should arguably be made available for people to see in the interest of transparency and this information is sought consistently from other car makers.

Tesla is of course sticking out like a sore thumb, because they have put the most investment into EV's and "autopilot" features the data might show that they stick out.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 1 year ago

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-ca...

1vuio0pswjnm72• 1 year ago

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY19FH008.aspx

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH011.aspx

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY18FH004.aspx

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY16FH018.aspx

Battery fire

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY21FH011.aspx

remarkEon• 1 year ago

Given that Elon wants to torpedo this spending bill over his precious EV credits, I imagine the honeymoon phase is assuredly over and he won't be successful in influencing the administration here.

riffraff• 1 year ago

Or he just gets his credits back and surprise, there's no longer a problem with pork and deficit.

Trump may not care about reelection but congressmen do.

fastball7• 1 year ago

Elon is on the record many times saying there should be 0 tax credits for vehicles.

elgenie2• 1 year ago

What is this record of which you speak and what, pray tell, are the penalties suffered by Elon for lying repeatedly on it?

iamtheworstdev2• 1 year ago

he can say that all he wants, but Tesla's profits go away when the credits go away, and likely so does his stock price again.

dhx• 1 year ago

For reference, [1] is the recent UN regulation for road vehicles to have an event data recording (EDR) function which records certain telemetry about a vehicle for -5 to +5 seconds around a crash event. None of these fields relate to ADS/ADAS. This difference is described at [3] but in summary, EDR telemetry describes what the vehicle physically does, not who or how the vehicle was instructed to operate in that way. EDR telemetry doesn't answer if ADS/ADAS applied the throttle input or whether it was the human operator depressing the accelerator pedal.

Countries take time to decide how to implement the UN regulations so in countries such as Australia, there is (from a quick check) still no regulation requiring light passenger road vehicles to record any telemetry. The US already had a form of regulation requiring limited telemetry about a vehicle for -20 to +5 seconds around a crash event to be recorded.[2] This US regulation also did not require recording of fields relevant to ADS/ADAS.[2]

What this article describes is access to telemetry data that manufacturers such as Tesla are voluntarily recording within vehicles that may include some idea of ADS/ADAS operation during a crash event. For example, Tesla may be recording the human throttle input separate from recording of the ADS/ADAS throttle input, showing whether it was the driver or vehicle who caused the car to accelerate dangerously before a crash. But the UN regulation and older US regulation didn't expect Tesla to record more than just a single throttle position field, ignoring whether ADS/ADAS or the driver directed the throttle position.

[1] UN Regulation No. 160 - Event Data Recorder (EDR) - https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/R160E.pdf

[2] CFR Title 49 Subtitle B Chapter V Part 563 - https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...

[3] https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2019/wp29grva/GRVA...

xyst• 1 year ago

Tesla executive leadership continues to be a joke in their industry. I hope their sales continue to drop off across the globe.

cosmicgadget3• 1 year ago

I hope they don't compare market cap.

Yeul4• 1 year ago

That's what I don't get about Tesla.

VW, BYD or Toyota or judged on how many cars the sell. What is Tesla judged on?

But then I remember that investors just want to dump their shares on the next sucker they don't really care about the underlying business case.

londons_explore2• 1 year ago

As a shareholder I'm pissed off that my money is going into unimportant legal wrangling rather than developing better products.

Like who cares if software version numbers are released on crash reports or not?

atwrk• 1 year ago

May I ask why you are a shareholder? IMO Tesla is headed straight into insolvency with sales collapsing all over the world and factories at <60% capacity, all while the global EV market is surging.

olelele• 1 year ago

AFAICT the stock is also insanely overvalued, especially compared to ”real” car making companies eg Toyota. The Silicon Valley hype valuation based on future exponential growth seems further and further away from reality every day. P/E anyone?

londons_explore2• 1 year ago

They're converting smart minds into technical innovation with an efficiency higher than pretty much every other company in USA.

Me giving them capital helps them keep more people from ending up writing boilerplate code for fintech startups and other fairly fruitless endeavors.

isodev• 1 year ago

At this point, why anyone would opt to buy a Tesla is beyond my understanding. The fact that regulation is lacking to such an extent as to allow Tesla to wait for airbag deployment for something to count as a crash is kind of sad.

para_parolu2• 1 year ago

Can’t say for everyone but there are not many alternatives with similar features on us market

seanhunter• 1 year ago

That may have been true 4 years ago but it’s far from true now. The only feature Tesla has that no other car seems to have is that minimalist “dentist’s waiting room decorated in the 1990s to seem futuristic” energy from the interior, which definitely sets Tesla apart although not entirely in a good way.

neepi• 1 year ago

I don't understand it either. Anybody I know recently in the UK only got one for political reasons or to stick it to the system in some naive way. I wish I was joking. This is even more sad.

pavlov• 1 year ago

These are the same people who are staunchly opposed to regulating emissions in any way.

So in a way it’s great that they’ve been convinced to buy zero-emissions vehicles by giving them a reactionary edgelord option that’s just like every other EV. (Except for the suicide FSD mode which is more like a Darwin awards filter.)

NoPicklez15• 1 year ago

Well because Tesla's are excellent cars and are still ranked at the top compared to the rest of the market.

The only part I don't know why people would trust is the FSD/Autopilot of which I wouldn't recommend people to buy. But as an EV its an excellent car.

otherme1232• 1 year ago

They are actually lacking. Their reliability is low (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2024-us-vehi...), even comparing with ICEs, and as electric vehicles they should be naturally more reliable. They are also known to refuse to participate in quality studies (https://www.motorbiscuit.com/dumb-reason-tesla-ineligible-j-...). In 2023 they were at the bottom of the reliability list by JD Power (https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-init...).

bobsomers• 1 year ago

They're not actually that great of an EV anymore. The build quality is lackluster and the ride on the Model 3 in particular is quite harsh.

Some of the comments I hear almost universally from prior Model 3 owners when they switch to an Ioniq 5 is how much nicer the ride quality is and how nice it is to have buttons on the dash again.

mattmanser• 1 year ago

The cybertruck is an excellent car?

sirdvd• 1 year ago

Well because Tesla's are excellent cars and are still ranked at the top compared to the rest of the market.

whilst surely top ranked, they apparently share the top with others makers (https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/latest-safety-ra...) (Large Family Cars category, last two years, order by occupant protection).

dashundchen• 1 year ago

Tesla came out last in a 2-3 and 4-5 reliability comparison by the German inspection service TÜV, for the past two years.

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/11/tesla-model-3-comes-bottom...

mmmlinux• 1 year ago

Do they have CarPlay yet?

jmyeet• 1 year ago

But they aren't. What Tesla has going for them primarily is the Supercharger network.

The Cybertruck is a complete disaster of a vehicle with so many issues (eg [1]) that the only reason people buy them is to make a political statement from a group that 3+ years ago wouldn't have been caught buying an EV.

Teslas are drivable iPads. Many people (myself included) not only hate this (because it's hard to use without looking) but it's also lazy design. By this I mean, it allows manufacturers to say "we'll fix it with a software update" (and then probably never get around to it) whereas haptic controls require more thought and effort to be put into the UI/UX during manufacturing.

For other Teslas, there have been a host of other issues, some small, some not. For example, the seats were unreliable if adjusted too often so Tesla made an OTA update to limit how much you can adjust the seats to avoid failure [2].

The only thing propping up Tesla sales now are trade restrictions on BYD.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/cybertruck-recall-tesla-elon-musk...

[2] https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-now-monitors-how-ofte...

UberFly• 1 year ago

I get the feeling you didn't actually read the article.

thrance• 1 year ago

Vice signalling? They are the best way to advertise to the world that you hate minorities.

JKCalhoun2• 1 year ago

Ha ha, vice signaling. Good phrase for pickup trucks "rolling coal".

Gareth32112• 1 year ago

As someone who recently bought a Tesla, nothing comes close for the price to the Model Y in terms of range, performance, trunk space, and software. If you want an EV and value those things, the Model Y is the clear choice.

MagicMoonlight2• 1 year ago

Ioniq 5

Teslas don’t even have a Speedo, let alone a HUD. It’s just an iPad with proprietary software which can’t sync with your phone. Terrible

randomcarbloke2• 1 year ago

Boot-space is literally all it has going for it, you can equal or surpass the other categories for less here in Europe, and if you buy used since used EV's are dirt cheap you could get something significantly better with far better badge-appeal for about the same price.

csomar2• 1 year ago

The Y/3 models are relatively decent and well priced (even competitively priced to the Chinese models). That's 90% of their sales.

77pt77• 1 year ago

Not without tariffs they are not.

And the chinese models are just much better.

kergonath• 1 year ago

Behold, transparency!

BrtByte• 1 year ago

It's always a red flag when a company starts leaning hard on "competitive harm" to block safety-related data

beezlewax• 1 year ago

This company should be boycotted in it's entirety

qwertox• 1 year ago

saying that public disclosure of the information could cause competitive harm.

Remember what Musk said many years ago, something along the lines of that he wants to get the global EV movement started, and that for this to happen he'd gladly let anyone use his patents without retaliating?

Now he doesn't even want data which might save lives to get out into the public.

June 12, 2014
Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160722033909/https://www.tesla...

JKCalhoun2• 1 year ago

My impression is that Tesla's are (were) status symbols people bought to flaunt their wealth [1].

Perhaps Musk's persona has kind of killed that though. Or at least he causes one to weigh the status aspect of the car against the politics they increasingly represent.

[1] The thing I've alsways disliked most about Tesla actually — not a car "for the people" — way too rarefied, elite.

benwad• 1 year ago

Personally I think the strategy of starting with luxury cars and getting cheaper was a good one. The bigger profit margin of luxury cars could be fed back into R&D to make cheaper electric cars viable.

Of course, that's the ideal situation. Tesla in 2025 is very different from what they were talking about in 2014.

robertlagrant6• 1 year ago

[1] The thing I've alsways disliked most about Tesla actually — not a car "for the people" — way too rarefied, elite.

This seems a little crazy. They started with the fastest one, but it was still much cheaper than equivalents, and model 3s and model ys have been selling like hot cakes. These are cars for the people.

sandworm1013• 1 year ago

They are symbols. Far more carbon would be saved if people instead bought solar panels for thier houses and drove a smaller IC car rather than an EV tank. But you cannot flaunt solar panels like you can a fancy car.

tiahura• 1 year ago

I think your impression is mostly speaking about you.

lallysingh• 1 year ago

The model Y was the best selling car in the world last year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-mod...

That's a lot of flaunters.

_ea1k8• 1 year ago

They've never been that. Their goal has always been to be the highest volume car manufacturer in the world, not some weird status symbol.

The Model Y being the best selling car in the world for 2 years in a row is a part of that.

There's nothing rarefied at all about it.

panick21_4• 1 year ago

not a car "for the people" — way too rarefied, elite.

Based on what? They are at or below the avg car price. They are literally definitionally avg.

In fact, the Model 3 was one the cheapest electric cars at the time.

And still today Model Y isn't all the expensive. And its the most sold car in the world. How can the most sold car in the world be considered elite?

vonneumannstan2• 1 year ago

[1] The thing I've alsways disliked most about Tesla actually — not a car "for the people" — way too rarefied, elite.

Not generally a fan of Teslas but this just rings hollow. You can get Model 3's and Model Y's for under $40k which is much less than the average cost of a new car in the US. (~$49k in 2025). I would consider a car priced below the average well within the reach of "the people". Even a top specced Model S is no where near what actually rarefied elites could drive. A Base 911 Carerra is ~$130k, a 911 Turbo S is $230k. A New Ferrari 296 is over $400k and you can't buy one even if you wanted to.

NoPicklez15• 1 year ago

From my understanding this couldn't be further from the truth.

Elon knew that EV's weren't sexy, so he decided to risk it and build a fast and ultimately expensive EV to begin with, to show people that they were worth buying and fast.

Only now through the model Y and the model 3 are we now seeing more consumer friendly models, which is what Elon always wanted from the start.

Here in Australia you can buy a model 3 for around the same price as our most sold car.

kypro• 1 year ago

While this article seems to be trying to imply Musk made this decision himselves it seems like the request actually came from the legal team at Telsa. Obviously Musk is still the CEO though and should overrule the decision for the reason you note, but should probably just note that this isn't necessarily a decision coming directly from Musk. Almost any company is likely to do the same thing given their incentives. The reason Musk's stance on patents was rare was because it's arguably a pretty bad business decision.

contingencies• 1 year ago

The whole problem with EV transitioning is that the charging requires you to build out infrastructure. By making their standards open they made the infrastructure investment shared. This was a high confidence basis for build-out. Now third parties like ABB produce chargers and sell them to third parties like gas stations. It's a perfectly rational business decision coming from a strategic position of "large greenfield investment and ongoing maintenance required". Obviously things evolve, but Tesla is certainly not in a worse position for the charging infrastructure (the main enabler of their products) due to the open patents decision at present.

davidcbc• 1 year ago

Even the patent thing was just a scam. You're free to use Tesla's patents as long as you promise to not sue them for violating any of your patents. It wasn't some altruistic thing

Corrado• 1 year ago

I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a "scam" but there were definitely reasons that other automakers didn't take them up on the offer. IMHO if someone like Ford or Toyota had taken them up on the offer they could be miles ahead of the competition today and not lagging behind the Chinese competitors. While there were strings attached there were also a lot of good ideas in those patents that would have boosted development and deployment timelines.

Veserv• 1 year ago

Worse than that [1].

asserted, helped others assert or had a financial stake in any assertion of (i) any patent or other intellectual property right against Tesla

You had to agree to let Tesla use any of your patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and all other forms of intellectual property. In return Tesla lets you use just their patents.

Yes, it is actually explicitly that blatantly unfair.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/legal/additional-resources#patent-pled...

_ea1k8• 1 year ago

That was always intended to be a reciprocal agreement, similar to the ones used in the software industry to defend against patent trolls. Tesla has a history of being very concerned about that type of behavior and its impact on their business.

I disagree with Tesla about this case at the moment, but the issues are very different.

bigbadfeline• 1 year ago

That was always intended to be... [something else entirely]

That's not what he said, anyone can invent excuses after the fact but that doesn't change the facts.

Musk simply pulled the "Don't be evil" trick, in so many words. Oops, sorry, not being evil helps the competition - which has also been slapped with 150% tariff, just in case.

castratikron• 1 year ago

Question to anyone, how does autonomy align with Tesla's goal to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport? How are autonomous vehicles more "sustainable"?

Fischgericht7• 1 year ago

My Tesla still detects about 90% of garbage bins on our street, but only about 60% of the school kids crossing the road (I live in Germany where kids walk to school). The rest it would kill. As I pass by that school daily on my way to work, my Tesla would probably kill about 10-20 kids per week.

Yeah, good idea to hide the crash data.

mgoetzke2• 1 year ago

You base that assumption on the visualizations in the center I guess ? They are not actually everything the car sees and reacts to. Especially not in our German FSD cars

Fischgericht7• 1 year ago

I am aware that FSD has a different software stack. But it's the same hardware. So why would they make the detection of kids different on the standard firmware artificially worse? As Marketing for people who hate school kids?

I find it laughable that there still are Musk fanboys who after a decade of lies about this still believe in "Robotaxis". 90% of them clearly have never tried to drive a Tesla in a scenario where the minimal protections for kids to use public street space is not "kids should get a SUV to not get killed".

It is also amusing to watch videos of Tesla fanboys on YouTube who proudly show that their Tesla now can use FSD for up to 500 miles without a single crash (or "critical disengagement)". A human driver statistically causes a crash every 500,000 miles.

But yes, we will have flying Robotaxis in 2 weeks from now, that will solve this problem. Musk said so.

fundatus• 1 year ago

I also find the opposite hilarious: The amount of things that Teslas detect as trash cans is absurd

Sohcahtoa822• 1 year ago

My favorite is that it identified my wife's Honda CRV as a trash can.

bell-cot3• 1 year ago

only about 60% of the school kids [...] The rest it would kill. [...] would probably kill about 10-20 kids per week.

I'm no Tesla fan - but it would be real-world obvious if even 0.1% of Teslas actually were that "eager" to kill children. In most western countries, covering up child-killing accidents scales very poorly.

avtolik• 1 year ago

Well, we don't have FSD in Europe, and in US, I guess the children don't walk to school.

thomastjeffery3• 1 year ago

The worrying part is that if/when those percentages get better, you will be more likely to trust it enough to let it run over children.

zelphirkalt• 1 year ago

Soon promised to only have 1/10 of detection failures, better than ever before! Only 1 child per week! Rejoice!

On a more serious note: Where do we as a society put the bar? What are the numbers, at which we accept the risk? Do we put the bar higher than for humans? Or same level? Or does the added convenience for car drivers tempt us to accept a lower bar?

gtani• 1 year ago

we have 2 very recent Tesla 3's here (in the US, tho i'm not sure which gen HW 3 or 4 they have and I don't drive them), i'm told (judging by center console) reliably identify anything they need to but FSD isn't happy in construction zones with orange cones and will go slow.

Fischgericht7• 1 year ago

In Germany (and a lot of the world, really) town centers are very old and streets are narrow and are shared. Over here it is also totally legal to cross the road wherever you like.

Also, due to the narrow roads it's standard practice to be in eye contact with other users of the shared space to make sure who drives/walks next.

Car AIs can not hold eye contact, so this is where the problem starts.

And, this one of course is very very specific just to Germany: On parts of the Autobahn you have to always expect another car approaching on the left lane with 250 km/h / 155 MPH, so you really have to use the rear view mirror very early to get an idea at what speed that car may be moving. The reach of the Tesla back camera is far too low for another driver at that speed being able to break so to not crash into your back.

So, when it comes to Germany even if the system worked better, there simply is no place where you could really make use of it without either killing people or getting killed.

mgoetzke2• 1 year ago

There is a lot of Tesla hate here on HackerNews its turning into reddit :)

redm• 1 year ago

I don’t understand all the FSD “disdain” in these comments. FSD 13+ on HW4 is amazing. I’ve basically stopped driving and it’s a marvel of technology.

It’s hard for me to understand how everyone doesn't geek out about it all the time.

standardUser• 1 year ago

One ride in a Waymo is enough to make Tesla's tech seem uninteresting. It's like showing off your LaserDisc player in 1999.

_ea1k8• 1 year ago

It has been a weird trend on HN for a while now. Some Tesla articles are nearly ignored, and others just get filled with trolls.

It is fairly obvious that the loudest have little experience with the product.

strix_varius2• 1 year ago

I’ve basically stopped driving

This is why - because people like you are killing other people due to technologically-inspired negligence.

misiti37802• 1 year ago

Musk has clearly gone crazy but Tesla's are without a doubt great cars. Until a real competitor exists, I will never drive another gas car and I will continue to drive Teslas

buyucu• 1 year ago

Tesla has no reason to fear or hide data if it hasn't done anything wrong.

Right?

teddyX• 1 year ago

This company is evil

thomastjeffery3• 1 year ago

Tesla wants to be isolated from criticism. Why? It's not just because this will show how bad they are relative to competition. The real reason is much more concerning.

Criticism of Tesla would deconstruct their dualist narrative. Tesla has sold the public on the notion that "good enough" self-driving is objectively safer than human driving. Anyone who accepts this narrative can consider the failure of human driving safety as an ultimate bad, which implies that Tesla's automated driving alternative is an ultimate good. This dogmatic thinking hinges on Tesla's vague assertion that automated driving in general is statistically safer than human driving in general. As soon as people engage with any criticism of this narrative whatsoever, the dualist perspective is lost, and the narrative itself falls apart.

Tesla seeks to guard crash data from public disclosure

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