Tesla covered up fatal accidents to keep autonomous driving tests going

A leak of Tesla's internal data revealed thousands of autonomous-driving-related accidents and complaints. Some were fatal accidents, and many cases remained unresolved.

The key disclosures are as follows.

• The internal files included more than 2,400 sudden acceleration complaints and over 1,000 accidents.
• Tesla claimed the data from the time of the accidents was corrupted, but an expert on the victims' side recovered the deleted data.
• The recovered records reportedly show that Tesla already knew about the defect on the day of the accident.

At the center of the case is the death of Naibel Benavides. Benavides, who was 22 years old at the time, died in an accident involving a Tesla vehicle driving in Autopilot mode, and her fellow passenger Dillon Angulo was seriously injured.

The jury ordered Tesla to pay more than $243 million in damages. This was presented as the first historic verdict in an Autopilot-related case, and a federal court upheld the ruling in late February. Tesla may appeal.

At the same time, Tesla is facing multiple investigations in the United States. The Department of Justice (DoJ) is investigating possible consumer deception, and NHTSA is investigating safety issues. Whistleblowers testified that the company prioritized speed to market over safety.