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Tesla defends its right to release individual driver data to disprove claims
During a week in which the House of Representatives voted to repeal Obama era Internet privacy protections, Tesla has come under fire from owners who dispute the all-electric carmaker’s right to disclose individual driver data to the media while also failing to share that data with the drivers themselves.
A pattern of Tesla public data dissemination has occurred after accidents in which Tesla vehicles have had automation software engaged. Tesla vehemently stands behind the safety and reliability of its cars, citing how its “Autopilot has been shown to save lives and reduce accident rates.” That comment came as result of a request from The Guardian. In explanation as to why Tesla releases individual driver information to the media, the Tesla spokesperson added, “We believe it is important that the public have a factual understanding of our technology.”
It is important to note that, in a famous case in which a Tesla Model S was the subject of serious scrutiny following a driver’s death after colliding with a truck while the driver-assist feature was engaged, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a report of no fault on Tesla’s part. Indeed the report stated that “Tesla vehicles crash rate dropped by almost 40 percent after Autosteer installation.”
What’s being contested here then? Several things, actually. Tesla feels it has an explicit corporate need to stand behind its driving-assist Autopilot technology through public disclosures of individual driving data when a crash occurs. Individual Tesla drivers, on the other hand, express a desire to maintain the right to information privacy regarding their driving performance. And, while Tesla has disseminated individual driver information to the media following Tesla crashes involving its Autopilot system, it continues to deny data sharing with individual customers. Moreover, the company does not follow the commonly accepted research practice of gaining permissions from study participants prior to including them in a data set.
And now some Tesla owners are fired up.
The technology available within a Tesla can provide information about the location of a driver’s hands on the steering wheel, if and when a driver’s door opens, and, importantly, the engagement and performance levels of autonomous technology. Tesla insists that it only releases specific driver data to the media when information has been misrepresented to the public.
Tesla crashes always seem to catch media attention. After a fatal early morning Tesla Model S crash in Indianapolis, a distraught dad claimed that his daughter would still be alive if she had been driving any other car but a Tesla. In a Baarn, Netherlands accident in which a Tesla Model S collided at high speed with a tree and killed the driver, Tesla investigated alongside local authorities. Uncertain as to whether Tesla’s Autopilot feature was engaged, the company said at the time it would analyze data collected through vehicle recovery procedures and “ share it with the public” once reports became final. In 2016, the first crash in China involving a Tesla operating in Autopilot mode caused a great deal of consternation. And a driver of a Model X that crashed along a trek to Yellowstone in Montana posted an open letter to Elon Musk and Tesla, asking the company to “take responsibility for the mistakes of Tesla products” and accusing Tesla of using drivers as “lab rats” for testing of its Autopilot system.
It is that dehumanization of Tesla drivers which has suddenly come to the forefront. Yes, as in all vehicular incidents, various factors come into play, especially driver error: physical (tired), emotional (angry), psychological (confused), or intellectual (distracted) factors occur when a person gets behind the wheel. But that’s not what is at issue in the case of drivers’ rights to information privacy when they engage technology applications. Is driving a personal act, a type of agency for which the driver assumes all responsibility? And, if all research institutions are required to acquire ethical consent from participants, why is Tesla absolved of such responsibility? The answers to these questions will continue to evolve as technology advances at amazing speeds.
In the upcoming age of self-driving cars, every touch screen signal is transmitted to the cloud as an immediate extension of a car’s functionality. A year ago, at a Congressional hearing about driverless cars, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey questioned over and over whether driverless car manufacturers would assume a minimum standard for consumer privacy protection. None of the constituents present answered his question.
And now, with the U.S. Congress clearly opposed to internet privacy protections, will the public — Tesla drivers included — give up the fight? Will it be “the classic politics of resignation,” as Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor, asserts? He says, “Most people… pick fights they know they can convince people they can win.” It’s an era in which the U.S. Presidential transition team members, according to Politico, had to sign non-disclosure agreement to make certain they keep all of their work confidential. Tesla, too, likes to keep internal information quiet, yet California lawmakers sent a letter to Tesla in January, 2017 asking the company to loosen its employee confidentiality agreement.
Major institutions want their information kept inside closed doors. Can drivers claim the right to privacy of what will become ubiquitous self-driving technology information systems of the future?
A Tesla spokesperson says the following in regards to the release of individual driver data:
“In unusual cases in which claims have already been made publicly about our vehicles by customers, authorities or other individuals, we have released information based on the data to either corroborate or disprove these claims. The privacy of our customers is extremely important and something we take very seriously, and in such cases, Tesla discloses only the minimum amount of information necessary… [We] transfer and disclose information, including personal and non-personally identifiable information … to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of the Services, Tesla, third parties, visitors to our Services, or the public, as determined by us in our sole discretion.”
Elon Musk
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
Tesla has begun building production quality Optimus robots in Fremont and revealed its training plan.
Tesla has started building Optimus on the high volume line it set up inside its Fremont factory, and the company says the robots coming off it are the first that meet the bar for a real product. “The bots coming off this line are the first production-quality bots that we have manufactured,” Tesla wrote in its third quarter shareholder letter, adding that it has “proven that the current manufacturing process for Optimus is suitable for a commercial product.”
The line sits in space that built the Model S and Model X until this spring. Tesla cleared the old vehicle line in 46 days, as Teslarati reported in July, to make room for robot production sized for one million units a year. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Elon Musk said most of the equipment for that capacity is already in Fremont, with output set to climb toward roughly 20,000 robots a week as the line ramps.
Musk described the ramp as a classic S curve. “The growth of Optimus is an S curve, but the initial curve is a shallow slope,” he said. The team is now refining the robot’s AI, electromechanical design, reliability and service life, and Musk expects that work to be finished by the end of next year, when Tesla plans to start delivering Optimus to outside companies for dangerous, repetitive and around the clock jobs.
The most interesting part of the call was how Tesla plans to teach the robots. Its cars send real driving data back to the AI team from millions of vehicles, but Optimus has no fleet like that yet. “A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don’t have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data,” Musk said. Tesla’s answer is an Optimus Academy, where 10,000 to 20,000 robots will practice a wide range of tasks and feed what they learn into the next version of the model. Every unit off the Fremont line becomes a source of that training data.
Smarter hardware is on the way too. Tesla plans to put its AI5 chip into Optimus next year, and Musk said a new Optimus video should arrive within one or two months showing the robot completing tasks driven by AI rather than preprogrammed motions. He took aim at rival humanoid demos that only run scripted routines, saying those would not hold up in the real world.
The supply chain is lining up behind the program. In September, Tesla certified Tuopu, Joyson and Sanhua as mass production partners for Optimus components. A far larger Optimus factory is also rising at Giga Texas, where drone footage from Joe Tegtmeyer showed the steel frame nearing completion, and Musk has pegged that plant’s long term target at 10 million robots a year.
Tesla executives also said Optimus production costs are trending toward the expected manufacturing cost of Cybercab, a sign the robot is being engineered for volume from the start. The hands remain the toughest piece of the design, a point Musk also made at the X Takeover event earlier this month, as Teslarati covered at the time, and that is where much of the current engineering effort is focused.
Elon Musk
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Musk disputes NASA estimate of 22 Starship launches for Moon landing, predicting 6 to 8.
Elon Musk is disputing a new NASA safety panel estimate of how many Starship launches it will take to put astronauts on the Moon, saying the real number will be less than half the panel’s figure.
On Thursday, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its quarterly public meeting. Panel member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, flagged the fueling process for SpaceX’s lunar lander as a major risk for Artemis IV, the mission planned to land a crew on the Moon in 2028. “We need to keep our eyes on numerous required fuelings for the lander,” Precourt said, according to Ars Technica. “I think the last estimate is around 22 flights.”
Ars Technica’s Eric Berger posted the comment on X, and Musk replied. “That’s way too high,” Musk wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”
The disagreement comes down to a basic problem with sending a ship as large as Starship to the Moon. Starship burns nearly all of its propellant just reaching Earth orbit, so it cannot continue on to the Moon without stopping for a refill. SpaceX’s answer is a gas station in space. First, a Starship that works as a storage tank, called a depot, is launched into orbit. Then a series of tanker Starships launch one at a time, dock with the depot and pump their leftover propellant into it. Once the depot is full, the lunar lander version of Starship launches, docks, fills up and heads for the Moon.
Every tanker trip is its own full rocket launch, which is why the count matters. More launches mean more time, more cost and more chances for something to go wrong before astronauts ever leave Earth. Berger estimated that even if SpaceX reaches twice weekly Starship launches by the end of 2027, filling a depot at the panel’s number would still take roughly three months.
How many tankers are needed depends mostly on how much propellant each one can carry to orbit and how much is lost along the way. Starship’s fuel and oxygen are stored at extremely cold temperatures, and some of it slowly boils off while waiting in orbit. More is lost in each transfer. NASA appears to be working from what Starship can lift today, while Musk’s range assumes a more capable rocket.
Musk has pushed back on higher counts before. In 2021, after a government document suggested 16 launches, he called that “extremely unlikely” and said eight tankers would be the most required.
Much of the answer depends on hardware SpaceX has not finished flying. As Teslarati noted earlier this year, the company plans to carry out the refueling process with its upgraded V3 Starship, and Precourt described Artemis IV as carrying “a large number of firsts.” He also praised NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s team for working to clear obstacles for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon lander does not rely on orbital refueling for its first mission.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
Fort Bend County approved four incentive agreements Thursday for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar factory.
Fort Bend County commissioners on Thursday approved a package of tax incentives for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar cell factory near Needville, Texas, giving the company one of the last local approvals it needs before it decides where to build. All four Tesla agreements passed 4 to 0.
The votes covered a property tax abatement inside Reinvestment Zone No. 34, a Chapter 381 economic development agreement, a foreign trade zone non-objection paired with payments in lieu of certain taxes, and a separate payment in lieu of taxes “true up” agreement, according to agenda notes from the Fort Bend Commissioners Court meeting.
The project, known internally as “Project Crystal Sun,” would make solar cells and finished modules on roughly 3,000 acres near FM 762 and FM 1994, south of the Brazos River. As Teslarati reported when the filing first surfaced in August, Tesla’s application under the state’s JETI Act splits the investment into $1.5 billion in real property and $8.6 billion in equipment, with 9,712 permanent jobs projected by 2033 and commercial operations targeted for the first quarter of 2029. The plant would handle the full chain from ingot and wafer production through cell testing.
Inside Tesla’s secretive $10 Billion “Project Crystal Sun” filing
Thursday’s approval does not lock in the site. Tesla has told the Texas Comptroller it is still weighing other locations, and site selection adviser David Dennison told Lamar Consolidated ISD trustees in September that the race had narrowed to Fort Bend and one out of state rival with a “very compelling package,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Tesla hopes to decide before the end of 2026, and the incentives still need sign off from the Comptroller and the Governor’s office.
Local officials have now done nearly everything within their control. Commissioners created the reinvestment zone in an August 24 special meeting, with Interim County Judge Daniel Wong formally withdrawing himself over his engineering firm’s past work with Tesla. Lamar CISD trustees voted 7 to 0 on September 15 to advance a JETI agreement that would tax Tesla’s qualifying property at 50 percent of its value for maintenance and operations from 2029 through 2038.
The plant lines up with a target Elon Musk set on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call in January, when he said the company would “work toward getting 100 GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials all the way to finished solar panels.” In March, Tesla was reported to be negotiating a $2.9 billion purchase of Chinese solar manufacturing equipment bound for Texas. The Houston area already hosts Tesla’s Megafactory in Brookshire, where Megapack 3 production has started. Tesla said on its Q3 call that Megapack supply for 2027 is nearly sold out, and Musk wrote on X Thursday that the company is “increasing production of Megapacks as much as possible,” as demand from data centers climbs.
Tesla reveals Optimus Academy, where robots teach themselves
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
