Shocking Leaked Tesla Documents Hint at Cybertruck Problems:
Cars crashing into bollards, brakes slamming on to avoid imaginary collisions, and more than 2,400 complaints of cars accelerating out of their owner's control. The 100 gigabytes worth of internal Tesla documents leaked to the German newspaper Handelsblatt present a sobering picture of the EV company's technical limitations.
The 23,000 files obtained by Handelsblatt cover issues in Europe, the US, and Asia between 2015 and March 2022, and they seem to show serious flaws in Tesla's Autopilot technology. The revelations could see the company facing new pressure from regulators, who are likely to pore over the reports looking for evidence that the company has misled authorities or customers over the safety of its vehicles.
The leaks may also reinforce a pervasive concern among Tesla investors and analysts that the company has lost its way. Its vaunted self-driving technology seems a long way from being safe enough for the road, and it can't seem to move viable new products from the drawing board to the showroom. Tesla hasn't launched a new consumer vehicle since 2020, and it's widely seen as falling behind other automakers, who are stepping up their development of new EVs to meet surging demand. Half-hidden within the rush of revelations is a teaser for a secret report on Tesla's long-awaited "Cybertruck," a weirdly angular pickup truck announced in 2019. It's unlikely to be good news.
[...] Tesla may not be able to rest on its laurels for long. "Even for established brands like Tesla, winning the confidence of consumers is vital," says Håkan Lutz, CEO and founder of the EV mini-mobility company Luvly. "Continued safety failings and production delays are leading customers to question whether self-driving vehicles will ever be a reality, and delays to the Cybertruck—announced four years ago—are not doing the company any favors in instilling confidence."
Investors seem to have already lost patience. Tesla's share price peaked at $407.36 in 2021 and has since fallen by more than half, closing on May 25, 2023, at $184.47 a share.
"Shareholders have been screaming at Musk to get back in the driver's seat for a long time," Schmidt says. "Tesla can't run itself in autopilot mode."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 30 2023, @11:29PM (2 children)
Read the Wired link, no mention of batteries or battery problems. Perhaps the batteries have stopped catching fire and are now a good thing about Tesla cars?
This reminded me of a comment from a number of years ago, "Musk really wants to be in the battery business, but until there are enough car companies using his batteries then Tesla will have to do." Not sure where I heard that first, but it was in the press at one time. It sort of makes sense, batteries are a business-to-business deal, no messy interaction with hundreds of thousands of individual customers. He may be letting Tesla run it's course.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 31 2023, @07:52AM (1 child)
I wonder if such a commodity can justify a $1 trillion or half-trillion market cap.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2023, @11:19AM
Yeah, that's just one of Musk's problems. He's created a bubble in Tesla stock price but it's bound to burst.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 31 2023, @05:10PM
The longer we keep a culture of "perfection is the only option" supported by suppression of all evidence to the contrary, the further it will splatter when it inevitably hits the fan.
Yes, I want to be able to find out about every little problem with new technology before trusting it with my life and the lives of my family.
No, I don't expect perfection - and nobody should - but: when a commercial jet crashes, we do hear about it, same should be true for autopilots in ground vehicles travelling 60+ miles per hour, 1 mile per minute, 88 feet (27 meters) per second - picture your body sitting on a stool moving 88 feet across the front lawn in one second, then slamming into a tree - avoidance of those scenarios is what we're trusting autopilot systems with - cameras that have no way of clearing their lenses when a bug splatters on them, or a reflection glare blinds them, and decision making systems with effectively less real-world education than a pre-schooler.
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