Thread by @maxrdlb

#teslafiles #autopilot - Chapter 7: Just Don't Put Anything in Writing

"Our car just stopped on the highway. That was pretty scary."

How did the company handle complaints? The Tesla Files shed light on this as well. The files show that employees have precise instructions for communication with customers. The prime directive apparently is: provide as little opportunity for attack as possible.

For each incident, there are bullet points for "technical review". The employees who enter this review into the system regularly make clear that the report is "for internal use only".

In every entry, it is also boldly noted that information, if passed on at all, may only be relayed "VERBALLY to the customer".

"Do not copy the report below into an email or text message or leave it in a voicemail to the customer," it continues. Vehicle data may not be released without permission. If, despite the advice, "involvement of a lawyer cannot be avoided", this must be recorded without fail.

Customers have the impression that Tesla employees avoid written communication. "They never sent emails, everything was always verbal," says the doctor from California, whose Tesla accelerated on its own in the fall of 2021 and slammed into two concrete pillars, according to her.

Now she has to pay a higher insurance premium. Tesla blamed her for the accident in the parking lot, claiming she had allegedly stepped on the gas pedal. To this day, she has problems with unintentional accelerations, which Tesla doesn't want to know about.

Former Bosch employee Manfred Schon wrote several emails to Tesla after his accident in June 2019 without receiving a response. The unintentional braking was "no longer acceptable" and "a safety risk," complained the software developer.

Tesla's treatment of its customers shocked him: "This absolute lack of concern given the severity of the safety issues." Tesla did not respond to questions about the customers' allegations.

Handelsblatt is not aware of any case in which Tesla has admitted faults in its autopilot. Schon eventually dropped his car off at a service center.

When he picked up the car after several weeks, an employee handed him the key with the words that no problem had been found. Tesla couldn't do anything for him.

Swiss customer Thomas Karl is one of those who received written replies. He warned Tesla in an email after several phantom brakings in 2021 that his car was "simply too dangerous for the road".

The Tesla employees replied by email that the autopilot was behaving "absolutely normally". Karl should please look into the manual again.

Updates and driving simulations would steadily improve the system, the service repeatedly promised him. It could not be ruled out that the autopilot will "master difficult situations better" in the future, wrote an employee on February 5, 2021, "if not even flawlessly".

The Swiss man continued to drive and reported new phantom brakes. In response to a complaint, a Tesla employee wrote on May 3, 2021, that these were "purely due to the software". Some of these spontaneous brakes were even intended - "for safety reasons".

In one case, Karl's car had probably braked because of the lane width: "Unfortunately, we can't explain why it does this here."