Tesla takes so long to report Crash data, even Trump regulators take note

It turns out that it is actually possible for a company to drag its feet so long that even the Trump administration disputes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has announced that it would investigate Tesla’s habit of taking months to submit accident reports that involve business assistance technology, according to a Reuters report.

What time does Tesla get her information about the Crash report at the NHTSA? The agency requests that companies submit reports within one to five days of receipt of an accident. Tesla took “several months or more”, according to an opinion published by the agency. This has probably produced a lot of emails “Hey, Just Rack Back” while the NHTSA is trying to ensure that Elon Musk’s company complies.

Consequently, the NHTSA defect office opened an audit on the issue in the context of an effort to “assess the cause of potential delays in the reports, the scope of these delays and the attenuations that Tesla has developed to resolve them.” According to Bloomberg, the agency blamed delays on “a problem with Tesla data collection, which, according to Tesla, has now been resolved”, but it seems that they will examine it just to be sure. Not that Tesla would never lie about such things or would try to hide or obscure security information by doing things like, for example, to ask a judge not to disclose the data collected from crash reports.

The fact that Tesla has managed to attract this meticulous examination to itself is a minor miracle, given the way in which the current administration has been friendly with regard to autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, the NHTSA announced that it would even go behind some of its rules concerning autonomous vehicles and safety protocols that govern them, in particular the specific relaxation of report rules for accidents which involve autonomous technology. And yet, Tesla finds herself here, being examined for not having followed the loose regulations for which her CEO has put pressure on.

You can throw this case into the NHTSA actions linked to Tesla. Back under the Biden administration, the agency opened an investigation into Tesla’s full autonomous technology after being involved in four reported collisions, including a fatal accident. Another action from the Biden era has opened an investigation into Tesla vehicle reports involved in accidents while a functionality that allows drivers to move the car remotely has been initiated. In June, the NHTSA also started to question Tesla about its Robotaxi service which it launched in Texas, in order to learn if Tesla employees can remotely control vehicles.