Tesla has asked a judge to block the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s request to disclose certain data related to accidents involving self-driving cars, Reuters reports. The company argued that this information is confidential and that its disclosure would give competitors the opportunity to analyze the effectiveness of each version of self-driving technology and potentially find out the number of accidents associated with different systems.
Last year, the Washington Post filed a lawsuit against the NHTSA to gain access to more detailed information about accidents that occurred while using driver assistance systems such as autopilot and full self-driving (FSD). The agency said the requested data was not subject to state secrecy laws. The Post argues that although NHTSA publishes information about accidents, it “withholds important details about the technologies used and the circumstances and locations of accidents.”
Tesla argues that the company and the NHTSA should be able to keep certain information related to accidents secret. This includes information about driver behavior and road conditions, as well as specific versions of driver assistance systems that may have been used.
However, the Post’s lawyers argue that information about the versions of hardware and software that may have been used during the accidents is not confidential information, as drivers can access it through their car’s dashboard. In its statement this week, Tesla argued that “even in cases where individual Tesla owners may know certain information about their vehicles, such as the version of ADAS software installed, the location where the incident occurred, the road conditions at the time of the accident, and what they were doing before the accident, this information is shared with Tesla with the expectation that it will be kept confidential.”
According to Electrek, Tesla is taking advantage of NHTSA loopholes to redact most of the data related to accidents involving its cars. The company maintains that its self-driving technology does not make cars autonomous and that drivers must actively monitor its use. In other news, this month Tesla plans to start deploying its first robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.
Until the end of May, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency. This initiative is said to have led to the reduction of about 10 percent of the NHTSA staff earlier this year – including about half of the small team that oversees the safety of autonomous vehicles.
