Tesla claims there was no significant data on fatal crashes caused by Autopilot, but hackers recover data from the vehicle



In 2019, a Tesla Model S driver using

the Autopilot function took his eyes off the vehicle while driving, resulting in two fatalities and injuries. Tesla had announced that it did not possess any important electronic data from the time of the collision. However, when the plaintiffs suing Tesla asked a hacker to recover data from a chip recovered from the vehicle, the hacker revealed that electronic data from the time of the accident still existed and that Tesla had been storing that data from the beginning.

Tesla said it didn't have critical data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it. - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/29/tesla-autopilot-crashes-evidence-testimony-wrongful-death/



Tesla says Musk Autopilot claims should not have been heard in fatal crash case
https://electrek.co/2025/08/29/tesla-asks-court-to-throw-out-243-million-verdict-in-fatal-autopilot-crash-case/

In April 2019, a Tesla Model S traveling in Key Largo, Florida, failed to stop at an intersection and struck a parked SUV, killing and injuring two people standing nearby. According to documents submitted as evidence, the Model S was on Autopilot and the driver momentarily took their eyes off the road to look for their smartphone, then ran a stop sign and a red light, crashing into the SUV.

After reaching a settlement with the injured driver, Dillon Angulo filed a lawsuit against Tesla in 2024, alleging that Tesla activated Autopilot, which is designed to only work on highways, on public roads where it was not designed. Tesla argued that the driver, who admitted responsibility for the accident by searching for his smartphone, was solely responsible. However, the jury found that Tesla had introduced a defective vehicle into the marketplace and ordered the company to pay $243 million in damages and punitive penalties.

Tesla ordered to pay over 35 billion yen in damages, ruling that Tesla is partially responsible for fatal accidents that occurred while using Autopilot - GIGAZINE



Tesla announced in the lawsuit that it did not possess data from before or after the accident. Tesla's lawyer, Joel Smith, explained why the company could not submit the data to the court, saying, 'Tesla was negligent in its handling of the data, but did not engage in any wrongdoing.'

The plaintiffs' lawyers had been working for years to recover the data from Tesla, but by 2024 they had been unsuccessful and were preparing to go to trial without it. As a last resort, however, they turned to greentheonly , a hacker who has been known to recover data from damaged Teslas and post it on social media.

The following is a photo of greentheonly's usual workspace: In this case, the plaintiff's lawyer and greentheonly flew to Miami Airport in Florida to examine the control unit retrieved from the Florida Highway Patrol, and they apparently checked a copy of the Autopilot unit at a Starbucks near the airport.



As a result, greentheonly was able to recover the data from the incident. Furthermore, it was confirmed that Tesla received a snapshot of the crash immediately after the collision, demonstrating that Tesla's claim that the data was missing was false. 'Any rational person would have known that the data was there,' greentheonly said, questioning Tesla's claim that the data was missing.

The plaintiffs' lawyers pointed out that 'Tesla had access to the data from the beginning, yet misled investigators about it for years. This was nothing short of intentional.' Meanwhile, Tesla's lawyer, Smith, said the video footage of the incident showed that 'if the driver had kept their eyes on the vehicle, there would have been ample time to prevent the accident.' He added, 'Tesla could have used this evidence from the beginning to gain an advantage in court, but they didn't submit the video because they couldn't find it, not because they hid it.'

As a result, Tesla was found 33% responsible for the accident and ordered to pay $243 million in compensatory damages and punitive penalties. Regarding the failure to provide the data, the court also ordered that Tesla reimburse the plaintiffs for all expenses incurred in obtaining the data. However, the court ruled that 'there was no 'sufficient evidence' that the failure to provide the data was intentional.'



Following the verdict, the plaintiffs' lawyers issued a statement saying, 'This allegation is the latest example of Tesla and Elon Musk's complete disregard for the human lives caused by their company's faulty technology. The jury considered all the facts and correctly concluded that the driver and Tesla should be held jointly responsible. While the driver was found to bear a significant share of the blame for the accident, that does not mean that Tesla was not responsible. This verdict is not an indictment of the self-driving car industry, but rather an indictment of Tesla's reckless and dangerous development and deployment of its Autopilot system.'

A shareholder lawsuit filed in Texas in August 2025 accused Tesla of tort and omission for misleading investors in the promotion of its self-driving technology. Fred Lambert, who runs a website for electric car enthusiasts, said, 'This lawsuit, which has focused on Tesla's handling of data, is somewhat pioneering in the sense that the existence of data and whether it could be salvaged could have influenced the outcome of the trial.'

The report has also been a hot topic on Hacker News, where comments have raised questions about Tesla's procedures for handling sensitive vehicle data, and comments based on footage of the actual incident have reaffirmed the problem, asking , 'How bad is Autopilot, which detects vehicles and pedestrians before colliding with them?' Additionally, a user who has attempted to hack into a scrapped Tesla Model 3 unit reported that by accessing the system, they were able to retrieve all recorded location information and view the previous owner's life and the location records of the scrapped vehicle.

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in Vehicle, Posted by log1e_dh