100 Gigabytes of Tesla data exposing production secrets, personal data, and thousands of complaints relating to its autopilot including issues with acceleration, braking, and more were sent to the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

Handelsblatt released a report detailing the leak. The report gives the public an important leak into Tesla that it wouldn’t otherwise have. Firstly, Tesla’s cybersecurity is clearly lacking as it failed to protect its own data and the data of its customers.

The information in the report was also quite telling. Much of the main themes of the leak were already known issues, including phantom braking and acceleration issues with its autopilot feature. However, the report unearthed the scale of these issues and included a plethora of other sensitive data.

The leak included the names of over 100,000 former and current Tesla employees. It had other private personal information like private email addresses, phone numbers, and even salaries too.

Strangely, it also included the Social Security number of Elon Musk himself.

What’s In the Tesla Data Leak?

The Handelsblatt report details that the leak included 2,400 complaints alleging problems with sudden unintended acceleration. The leak also had over 1,500 complaints alleging braking problems of various sorts including 139 cases of phantom braking and 383 cases of phantom stops.

Tesla’s phantom braking phenomenon was already well-known since The Washington Post published a scathing piece detailing the issue. Tesla isn’t the only automaker that has run into similar problems.

More than 100 cases of phantom acceleration were reported with Toyota vehicles in and around 2010, leading to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation.

Tesla’s braking problems seem to be a major issue with the vehicle if this leak is accurate. Handelsblatt goes on to say that there have been over 1,000 crashes linked to these braking problems.

What Does the Tesla Data Leak Mean For The Automaker?

It seems like the leak won’t just be a bad look for the company. It may land it in trouble with data protection authorities, especially in Europe. Handelsblatt believes that the leak would violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR.

Before Tesla is hit with any fines the leak must be shown to be real. If the European Data Protection Board, the regulatory body that oversees and enforces the GDPR, finds that it is a genuine leak, Tesla could be hit with a record fine.

The maximum fine allowed by the GDPR is 4% of a company’s annual sales, which, for Tesla, could mean a whopping $3.5 billion fine. The EU Data Protection Board isn’t squeamish about giving out massive fines either.

The board slapped Meta with an excruciating (and record-breaking) $1.3 billion fine in May.

Data protection officers were shocked at the scale of the incident. Dagmar Hartge, the data protection officer of Brandenburg (where Tesla has a factory) said “I can’t remember such a scale.”

Tesla’s stock hasn’t moved much on the news of the leak but investors may be waiting to see if the report is legitimate.

Wall Street Memes (WSM) - Newest Meme Coin

Our Rating

Wall Street Memes
  • Community of 1 Million Followers
  • Experienced NFT Project Founders
  • Listed On OKX
  • Staking Rewards
Wall Street Memes
Visit OKX