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Tesla investor car crash thread

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He said all seatbelts were unbuckled, meaning AP was not possible per CR, you need the driver seat buckled to trick it. So either driver thrown to back, driver crawled to back, or a 3rd person driving that fled. Plenty of stuff he could have said that I’m certain they know, like if the drivers door was found open or if it had been opened. There is a reason he didn’t say.
 
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FUD fight - Woodlands TX accident investigation - (link to video from Rob Maurer | TD livestream)

Martin Viecha -- Senior Director of Investor Relations
Thank you. And the fourth question from retail investors is, does Tesla have any proactive plans to tackle mainstream media's imminent, massive and deceptive click-based headline campaigns on safety of autopilot or FSD for a specialty PR job of some sort?​
Unknown speaker
Well, I can -- I'll take this one, guys. From the safety side, I continue to say -- Elon, drive the point and I'll -- go ahead, Elon.​
Elon Musk -- Chief Executive Officer and Product Architect
No. I think -- no, please go ahead. I think it's just worth going through the facts of the -- what -- I mean, specifically, there were -- there was an article regarding a tragedy where there was a high-speed in Tesla. But -- and there was really just extremely deceptive media practices where it was claimed to be autopilot where this is completely false.​
And those journalists should be ashamed of themselves. Please go ahead, Lars.​
Unknown speaker (Ed. Note on speaker):
Yeah. Thanks, Elon. So I was just saying, we're committed to safety in all our designs, and that's number one in what we do here. Regarding the crash in Houston, specifically, we worked directly with the local authorities, NTSB and NHTSA, wherever applicable and whenever they reach out to us for help directly on the engineering level and whatever else we can support.​
In that vein, we did a study with them over the past week to understand what happened in that particular crash. And what we've learned from that effort was that Autosteer did not and could not engage on the road condition that -- as it was designed. Our adaptive cruise control only engage when a driver was buckled in about 5 miles per hour. And it only accelerated to 30 miles per hour with the distance before the car crashed.​
As well adaptive cruise control disengage the cars fully to complete to a stop when the driver's seatbelt was unbuckled. Through further investigation of the vehicle and accident remains, we inspected the car with NTSB and NHTSA and the local police and were able to find that the steering wheel was indeed deformed so there must -- leading to a likelihood that someone was in the driver's seat at the time of the crash and all seatbelts post crash were found to be unbuckled. We're unable to recover the data from the SD card at the time of impact, but the local authorities are working on doing that, and we await their report. As I said, we continue to hold safety in a high regard and look to improve our products in the future through this kind of data and other information from the field.​
Martin Viecha -- Senior Director of Investor Relations
OK. Thank you very much.​

 
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FUD fight - Woodlands TX accident investigation - (link to video from Rob Maurer | TD livestream)

Martin Viecha -- Senior Director of Investor Relations
Thank you. And the fourth question from retail investors is, does Tesla have any proactive plans to tackle mainstream media's imminent, massive and deceptive click-based headline campaigns on safety of autopilot or FSD for a specialty PR job of some sort?​
Unknown speaker
Well, I can -- I'll take this one, guys. From the safety side, I continue to say -- Elon, drive the point and I'll -- go ahead, Elon.​
Elon Musk -- Chief Executive Officer and Product Architect
No. I think -- no, please go ahead. I think it's just worth going through the facts of the -- what -- I mean, specifically, there were -- there was an article regarding a tragedy where there was a high-speed in Tesla. But -- and there was really just extremely deceptive media practices where it was claimed to be autopilot where this is completely false.​
And those journalists should be ashamed of themselves. Please go ahead, Lars.​
Unknown speaker (Ed. Note on speaker):
Yeah. Thanks, Elon. So I was just saying, we're committed to safety in all our designs, and that's number one in what we do here. Regarding the crash in Houston, specifically, we worked directly with the local authorities, NTSB and NHTSA, wherever applicable and whenever they reach out to us for help directly on the engineering level and whatever else we can support.​
In that vein, we did a study with them over the past week to understand what happened in that particular crash. And what we've learned from that effort was that Autosteer did not and could not engage on the road condition that -- as it was designed. Our adaptive cruise control only engage when a driver was buckled in about 5 miles per hour. And it only accelerated to 30 miles per hour with the distance before the car crashed.​
As well adaptive cruise control disengage the cars fully to complete to a stop when the driver's seatbelt was unbuckled. Through further investigation of the vehicle and accident remains, we inspected the car with NTSB and NHTSA and the local police and were able to find that the steering wheel was indeed deformed so there must -- leading to a likelihood that someone was in the driver's seat at the time of the crash and all seatbelts post crash were found to be unbuckled. We're unable to recover the data from the SD card at the time of impact, but the local authorities are working on doing that, and we await their report. As I said, we continue to hold safety in a high regard and look to improve our products in the future through this kind of data and other information from the field.​
Martin Viecha -- Senior Director of Investor Relations
OK. Thank you very much.​

Still a little confusing, but my takeaway is: they did a re-creation, they couldn’t get Autosteer to engage at all, and IF 1) driver was buckled in AND IF 2) car was going >5mph AND IF TACC was engaged, TACC wouldn’t have got the car going more than 30 mph in the distance to the crash. Conclusion, neither Autosteer nor TACC were involved.

My re-creation: since 1) steering wheel was deformed and 2) both seat belts were unbuckled, most likely scenario is - driver wanted to demonstrate a launch (driver in driver's seat, passenger in passenger's seat), got up to speed, couldn’t hold the turn and crashed, both occupants were conscious after the crash, unbuckled seatbelts but couldn’t get out of the vehicle, diver crawled to backseat to try to exit but couldn't. Fire. Unfortunately, Occam's Razor.
 
I still can't put together a scenario that fits the data we have. Why would the steering wheel be deformed if the air bags deployed? How did the car get going fast enough to create the evident damage. The wives should know with certainty if no one was in the drivers seat as the two left the driveway.
 
I still can't put together a scenario that fits the data we have. Why would the steering wheel be deformed if the air bags deployed? How did the car get going fast enough to create the evident damage. The wives should know with certainty if no one was in the drivers seat as the two left the driveway.
This looks to me like the air bag could deform the steering wheel depending on speed.
I think there is a reason everyone is so quiet. Tesla let out enough information to defend themselves.
 
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Perhaps there is something to learn and improve from this incident.

An ICE similar crash would be more likely to have been heard and reported/investigated, because of the high volume engine noise preceding impact.

Tesla could easily configure the horn to sound out a continuous SOS signal following any airbag deployment, until acknowledged.
Teslas already take some immediate action if they detect an accident. The LTE connection is used to contact the company data center and relay data from the event logs. This is how Elon knew immediately that AP was not engaged, and it's why some data exists even though the car burned. The data was sent before the fire disabled the transmitter.

Other's could possibly provide more details. I've heard that Tesla immediately calls the registered owner's phone if there is an accident. I think I've also heard (but can not confirm through experience) that the car calls 911/FireRescue, but again I'm not sure if that's automated.
 
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Houston Tesla Crash: Vehicle Recently Purchased Used P100DL, Authorities Don't Want To Release Further Details

"To understand this better, I looked up the Texas statute they cited, 552.108(a)(1):​
(a) Information held by a law enforcement agency or prosecutor that deals with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime is excepted from the requirements of Section 552.021 if:​
(1) release of the information would interfere with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime;​
"In other words, they are claiming that they can withhold these records because releasing the information would interfere with their investigation of a crime in some way. Given, though, that all of the people who could be charged with a crime died in the crash, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to claim that a crime is still being investigated or prosecuted. There’s just nobody to prosecute."​