Leaked files shed light on numerous safety complaints related to Tesla's Autopilot

German publication Handelsblatt has received a stack of 100GB of internal Tesla documents from several sources at the company.

The collection reportedly contains 23,000 internal documents, including complaints dating back to 2015 and March 2022.

According to the leak, Tesla has received about 2,400 reports of self-acceleration problems and 1,500 cases involving problems with the braking function. This includes 139 complaints of unintended emergency braking and 383 cases of phantom stops caused by false collision warnings.

The documents also include more than 1,000 crash reports and a table detailing 3,000 incidents in which drivers expressed concerns about the safety of Tesla's driver assistance system.

While most of the reported incidents originated in the United States, there were also complaints from Tesla owners in Europe and Asia. To confirm these reports, Handelsblatt contacted dozens of customers mentioned in the files, some of whom shared videos illustrating their experiences.

Apart from the safety complaints, the leaked files contained instructions for Tesla employees on how to communicate with customers regarding these issues. Notably, employees were instructed not to copy and paste incident reports into emails or text messages, and not to leave information as a voice mail recording. Instead, they were only allowed to verbally communicate details to customers.