Tesla loses whistleblower case after alleged 'Autopilot' dangers exposed – UPDATE
12/12/2024 10:37 PM
A whistleblower has won a court case against Tesla, despite handing over thousands of confidential files to a German news outlet – allegedly showing the company was aware of widespread faults with its semi-autonomous driving system, known as ‘Autopilot’.
UPDATE, 13 December 2024: A former Tesla employee who leaked more than 23,000 internal company documents has successfully sued the electric car maker for harrassment.
According to German newspaper Handelsblatt,Tesla acted unlawfully under whistleblower laws when Lukasz Krupsi – a service technician – was pushed out of his job following the release of more than 100 gigabytes of documents to media.
Known as The Tesla Files, the leak allegedly exposed thousands of complaints from customers about vehicle faults, along with alleged security flaws and claimed problems with data protection.
“Tesla made my life hell after I raised concerns about serious safety issues within the company,” Mr Krupski told the publication.
“I tried to act in good faith, but instead I was faced with retaliation, demotion and isolation.”
A Norwegian District Court ordered Tesla to pay Mr Krupski €180,000 ($AU296,000) – which includes €10,000 ($AU16,500) in damages.
In early 2024, a man from New South Wales was ordered by a Federal Court to remove copies of the leaked documents at Tesla’s urging.
However, lawyers for Tesla were later censured by the judge after they called for the man’s arrest when he failed to immediately comply with the order.
Our original story continues unchanged below.
Sunday 28 May 2023: More than 23,000 internal files from Tesla have been reportedly been obtained by a German newspaper, with the company accused of implementing policies to downplay potentially dangerous faults in its vehicles.
Dubbed The Tesla Files by the German publication Handelsblatt, the leak contains more than 100 gigabytes of confidential information from inside the walls of Tesla, handed over by a company whistleblower.
According to the newspaper, the files allegedly include more than 2400 complaints from Tesla customers claiming their vehicles “self-accelerated”, while another 1500 have allegedly reported braking malfunctions.
The report claims the files contain records of more than 3000 incidents involving potentially faulty driver-assist technologies, including more than 1000 vehicle crashes – most of which took place in the US.
It’s alleged the data includes 139 cases of unintentional emergency braking and 383 “phantom stops” from false collision warnings.
MORE: Tesla boss Elon Musk to be questioned under oath over autonomous driving promises
As reported by Drive in April 2023, at least 17 fatal crashes involving Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving systems have been reported to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since mid 2021.
Handelsblatt reports the latest leaked information – which it claims was authenticated through the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology – was collected between 2015 and March 2022, a period in which Tesla delivered approximately 2.6 million vehicles worldwide.
Tesla declined to answer questions from the newspaper about the allegations from customers, however it’s understood the US electric-car maker is taking legal action against a “disgruntled former employee” in relation to the leak.
The newspaper says it also contacted dozens of customers from several countries to confirm the information within the files, with some claiming they tried to return their vehicles to Tesla as they couldn’t allow someone else to drive their vehicles in good conscience.
According to the leaked files, Tesla employees allegedly have strict instructions to offer as little information as possible into any “technical reviews” conducted by the company born from complaints, with all communication done so through verbal means only to ensure there is no paper trail.
MORE: Elon Musk overruled Tesla engineers on removing high-tech radars
The leak comes a month after a US jury found Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system – marketed under the ‘Autopilot’ name in some markets – was not responsible for a single-car crash in 2019, which left the driver with facial injuries.
“Regardless of the verdict of the [US] case, there remains a question about whether that technology is safe, whether it's safe to allow consumers to enable it in certain circumstances,” Executive Director of the Centre for Auto Safety, Michael Brooks, told Bloomberg at the time.
German authorities are now investigating the recent data leak, according to Automotive News Europe, with Tesla potentially in breach of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation – which is designed to shield customers, employees, and business partners from having their information exposed.
The post Tesla loses whistleblower case after alleged ‘Autopilot’ dangers exposed – UPDATE appeared first on Drive.
