Feds told Tesla to stop making “misleading statements” on Model 3 safety

"Your company has issued a number of misleading statements," NHTSA wrote to Musk.

Read the whole story

 

[ljlego]

This is a case where both sides are right.

(and where I'll be downvoted by readers who do fall on a particular side )

Here's why I downvoted you:

One "side" is the side of "please don't use the equivalent of p-value fishing to define your marketing narrative." The other is "we did not technically do anything illegal" aka "we are technically correct, the best kind of correct."


One is a fundamental tenet of a sane scientific society. The other is an entertaining meme from a satire also taken out of context.

 

[JonTD]

Thanks

None of the FSD payments have been realized on teslas books, which means they cant use them or call it profit or whatever, close to $2bn from memory.

So you’re claiming that if you buy a Tesla car and get the FSD option, they set the money you paid for the option aside and don’t count it as income?

Interesting take...

That's the way accounting rules work.

It's an "advance payment" so it's held on the balance sheet as an asset until the income can be realized:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/ad ... ayment.asp

Edit: Add link and better description.

How about you show evidence Tesla is actually doing this instead of just barfing up generic crap from investopedia?

They allocate FSD revenue over eight years, actually. So they don't hold it as deferred revenue completely, but most of it they do not claim as revenue for income right away. They portion it out each year. That tidbit is in their quarterly statements. So on purchase the majority of the FSD purchase price is not recognized for income calculation. It is included in statement of cash flows, obviously, and they can spend the money. But the deferred revenue portion acts as a liability on the balance sheet and is definitely not recognized as part of their revenue for income until it is actually recognized as revenues.

At some point someone also claimed unearned revenue is held as an asset, and that's 100% wrong. It hits assets as cash.

 

[WXW]

In an earlier post, I put down a link to a 40ft fall in a model 3.

I was genuinely surprised an all glass roof did not shatter or crack.
Would either of the auto editors @ ars like to follow up on this ?

Is it the glass ? or the B-pillar ? or ... just plain luck ? or some new manufacturing technique ?
(Apple's use of Corning's Gorilla glass came to mind here)

This would make an interesting article, as maybe other car makers are looking into the same tech, like the phone makers did

Luck. You can find people with Model 3 roofs cracked without even being involved in an accident. The glass is laminated, which makes shattered glass hold together; it's used by other manufacturers as well. You would know all this by just using an Internet search service of your choice.

By all means, don't hesitate to mention the same irrelevant accident story later on.

 

[Thr2hrmrf]

“Safest” and “safest in this particular test” are not equivalent. If anything, I would consider that to be the most misleading thing about Teslas statement.

The most misleading thing about Teslas statement is Tesla.

 

[Jim Z]

In an earlier post, I put down a link to a 40ft fall in a model 3.

I was genuinely surprised an all glass roof did not shatter or crack.
Would either of the auto editors @ ars like to follow up on this ?

Is it the glass ? or the B-pillar ? or ... just plain luck ? or some new manufacturing technique ?
(Apple's use of Corning's Gorilla glass came to mind here)

This would make an interesting article, as maybe other car makers are looking into the same tech, like the phone makers did

there are two types of glass used for automotive daylight openings (DLOs.)

- Safety (laminated) glass for the windshield. This is a "sandwich" of a layer of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) between two layers of standard plate glass. It cracks and shatters into shards just as easily as any plain glass window, but the PVB layer holds everything together to prevent glass daggers from entering the cabin

-Toughened (tempered) glass for everything else; side windows, backlites, and moonroofs. This kind of glass is made by heating plate glass above a certain temperature, then quenching the surface with water. this creates a ton of internal stresses with the outer surfaces in compression and the inner layer in tension. Toughened glass can withstand impacts, scratching, and bending a lot more than plain glass. And when it does break, it pops into thousands of little glass "pebbles" instead of shards.

so, however the car fell, nothing struck the roof panel severely enough to shatter it, and the body didn't bend/twist enough to do it either. I've seen other cars which were T-boned, and the side door glass was intact but with a much more pronounced curvature than it was supposed to have.

Gorilla Glass is another type of toughened glass, done via a chemical process rather than plain heat treatment. Gorilla Glass can be made in much thinner sheets than regular toughened glass.

 

[jock2nerd]

Let's level set here. Tesla's Model 3 performed better on NHTSA's "Vehicle Safety Score" than any other car ever. NHTSA does not dispute that fact.

NHTSA disputes comparison claims using VSS when those claims can be interpreted to suggest that a better VSS for Vehicle A than Vehicle B supports the conclusion that Vehicle A will be safer than Vehicle B in all scenarios. Tesla's claims don't clarify that there are specific circumstances where comparison using VSS won't be valid.

The specific circumstance NHSTA cites as an example where VSS comparisons are dubious is where Vehicle A has a crash with a significantly heavier vehicle, Vehicle B.

Tesla counters with two solid points in their response to NHTSA:

(1) As a matter of law, Tesla's claims only make the generic statement about overall likelihood of injury - they make no claims (implied or otherwise) about performance in specific crash scenarios (with a heavier vehicle, rolling over, setting on fire, etc.), AND

(2) the basis for taking the overall VSS score and applying it to real-life crash scenarios OVERALL, is that most crashes involving death or serious injury are not the weight-mismatch scenario that NHTSA highlighted.

Something around half of serious injuries/deaths occur in crashes that are single-vehicle , and, among multi-vehicle crashes, a significant percentage will involve vehicles that are going to be of similar or lesser weight than the Model 3 (which is about average in weight among light duty cars and trucks).

I appreciate NHTSA wanting to police the use of their data for representations made to consumers. And I also think it's appropriate for a consumer protection agency to confirm the validity of the evidence Tesla uses to support, in particular, Point 2 above (that their VSS comparison is valid for the majority of crash-types that result in serious injury or death).

But this is not the same, for example, as Musk's statement about having secured the funding for Tesla to be bought out or making irresponsible claims about when FSD will be truly available. Teslas really are exceptionally safe vehicles, and at least on certain tests, have outperformed all others, and - frankly - I think leaders in safety should be able to take credit for having done so.

To be clear, Tesla's claims may not specify circumstances where VSS may be invalid, but an absence of such a clarification tends to make the reader think there are no exceptions to the claim, not that the claim is valid for specific circumstances.

Honestly, I would think that actual empiric data - namely IIHS type data - would be a better talking point than NHTSA testing.

Heck, rollover scores are done as a static tilt test. Low-slung sports cars do well on this test, but empiric data clearly demonstrates that sports cars frequently roll over due to driver behavior.

Fortunately, businesses are not required to enumerate all specific instances where the general rule (i.e. so-and-so product is the safest) does not hold, so long as the general rule is true and supported by evidence and there are no clearly implied specific applications. Else, we would have a very difficult time communicating generally applicable rules.

It would be different if, in the context of any claim of being generally safer than other vehicles, Tesla implied that Model 3s would fair better than a heavier vehicle in a head on collision between the two (for example, if a commercial showed a Model 3 about to get into a collision with a bigger car/SUV). But that didn't happen here.

And I certainly agree that there are likely other stats/tests that car companies may want to rely on other than NHTSA's VSS.

Except the claim was

"Model 3 achieves the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle tested by NHTSA", followed by

"But when a crash happens in real life , these test results show that if you are driving a Tesla, you have the best chance of avoiding serious injury."

(Emphasis mine - note, it does not specify "under these test circumstances")

Now, the lawyerese of the Tesla response said they did not "claim Model 3 would outperform substantially heavier vehicles in a head to head crash...", it does leave open how any individual reading the previous quotes would come to the conclusion of a Tesla driver being less safe than a heavier vehicle in those circumstances.

Because presumably, any given reader would assume the heavier vehicle was tested by NHTSA as well, and that vehicle had a lower score - and therefore is less safe.

Except that Tesla's are actually quite heavy cars and unusually well built, so they will do very well against other cars, and there simply aren't many cars on the road significantly heavier.

 

[jock2nerd]

Do I have to pay 3,000$ to unlock the firmware for crash resilience?

Smarmy.

As a fact, all the safety features are included in the price.

 

[Tondelaya Shillyshally von Brainstorm]

Let's level set here. Tesla's Model 3 performed better on NHTSA's "Vehicle Safety Score" than any other car ever. NHTSA does not dispute that fact.

NHTSA disputes comparison claims using VSS when those claims can be interpreted to suggest that a better VSS for Vehicle A than Vehicle B supports the conclusion that Vehicle A will be safer than Vehicle B in all scenarios. Tesla's claims don't clarify that there are specific circumstances where comparison using VSS won't be valid.

The specific circumstance NHSTA cites as an example where VSS comparisons are dubious is where Vehicle A has a crash with a significantly heavier vehicle, Vehicle B.

Tesla counters with two solid points in their response to NHTSA:

(1) As a matter of law, Tesla's claims only make the generic statement about overall likelihood of injury - they make no claims (implied or otherwise) about performance in specific crash scenarios (with a heavier vehicle, rolling over, setting on fire, etc.), AND

(2) the basis for taking the overall VSS score and applying it to real-life crash scenarios OVERALL, is that most crashes involving death or serious injury are not the weight-mismatch scenario that NHTSA highlighted.

Something around half of serious injuries/deaths occur in crashes that are single-vehicle , and, among multi-vehicle crashes, a significant percentage will involve vehicles that are going to be of similar or lesser weight than the Model 3 (which is about average in weight among light duty cars and trucks).

I appreciate NHTSA wanting to police the use of their data for representations made to consumers. And I also think it's appropriate for a consumer protection agency to confirm the validity of the evidence Tesla uses to support, in particular, Point 2 above (that their VSS comparison is valid for the majority of crash-types that result in serious injury or death).

But this is not the same, for example, as Musk's statement about having secured the funding for Tesla to be bought out or making irresponsible claims about when FSD will be truly available. Teslas really are exceptionally safe vehicles, and at least on certain tests, have outperformed all others, and - frankly - I think leaders in safety should be able to take credit for having done so.

To be clear, Tesla's claims may not specify circumstances where VSS may be invalid, but an absence of such a clarification tends to make the reader think there are no exceptions to the claim, not that the claim is valid for specific circumstances.

Honestly, I would think that actual empiric data - namely IIHS type data - would be a better talking point than NHTSA testing.

Heck, rollover scores are done as a static tilt test. Low-slung sports cars do well on this test, but empiric data clearly demonstrates that sports cars frequently roll over due to driver behavior.

Fortunately, businesses are not required to enumerate all specific instances where the general rule (i.e. so-and-so product is the safest) does not hold, so long as the general rule is true and supported by evidence and there are no clearly implied specific applications. Else, we would have a very difficult time communicating generally applicable rules.

It would be different if, in the context of any claim of being generally safer than other vehicles, Tesla implied that Model 3s would fair better than a heavier vehicle in a head on collision between the two (for example, if a commercial showed a Model 3 about to get into a collision with a bigger car/SUV). But that didn't happen here.

And I certainly agree that there are likely other stats/tests that car companies may want to rely on other than NHTSA's VSS.

Except the claim was

"Model 3 achieves the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle tested by NHTSA", followed by

"But when a crash happens in real life , these test results show that if you are driving a Tesla, you have the best chance of avoiding serious injury."

(Emphasis mine - note, it does not specify "under these test circumstances")

Now, the lawyerese of the Tesla response said they did not "claim Model 3 would outperform substantially heavier vehicles in a head to head crash...", it does leave open how any individual reading the previous quotes would come to the conclusion of a Tesla driver being less safe than a heavier vehicle in those circumstances.

Because presumably, any given reader would assume the heavier vehicle was tested by NHTSA as well, and that vehicle had a lower score - and therefore is less safe.

Except that Tesla's are actually quite heavy cars and unusually well built, so they will do very well against other cars, and there simply aren't many cars on the road significantly heavier.

That actually is accurate, which I did not expect when I started to look into the claim you stated.

Model 3 weight is 3600-4200lbs

Audi A8 weight is 4300lbs

BMW 5 series weight is 3700-4400lbs

BMW 7 series weight is 4200-4800lbs

Ford Taurus weight is 4000-4400lbs

Hyundai Equas weight is 4600lbs

Toyota Camry weight is 3200-3600lbs

Volvo V90 weigght is 4200lbs

There are certainly some that are much heavier, but they are not likely owned by very many.

Rolls Royce Phantom - 5600lbs

Bentley Mulsane - 6000lbs

Actually, many Rolls Royce and Bentley models are over 5000, as well as some Jaguars and a few others, so if you are in a Model 3, try to avoid hitting the fancy cars even if they look the same size.

 

[Kruskal-Szekeres]

I have a couple of questions for the group:

1) Does violating 'Guidelines' in this case actually mean anything in a real and legal manner? I note that in the letter from the NHTSA they are forwarding their complaint to the FTC. Does the NHTSA have any legal standing itself?

2) The FTC received this ~10 months ago. I certainly understand government departments take a while to respond, but isn't this a little long to go without some response? Or is this one of those cases of a department being able to hold something over a company. "You know, we'e still reviewing that complaint we received."


{ And not to inflame the fire going on, but I'd love to see the upvote/downvote reasoning breakdown. I've seen some (what I consider) interesting posts downvoted to oblivion and some remarkably useless ones left completely unvoted. Maybe it's a case where coming back in 12 hours will generate a clearer picture. }

What happened is an anti-Tesla groups (pick your poison: but probably Shorts or Oil lobby) got hold of this old and relatively irrelevant information from last year and started pushing it out.

oh look, the fanboy is reading from the script again:

1) "anti-Tesla"
2) "shorts"
3) "big oil"
.
.
.
.

I used to think they were fanboys, but if you really talk to them you realize it’s a full-on cult. Tesla isn’t a car company, they’re a “save the world” company. Some of them even think Tesla is just the funding arm designed to get them to a Martian utopia. All who don’t agree aren’t just disagreeable or wrong, they’re shills, shorts, big oil, or just downright evil. Statements from The Leader are given enormous weight, any critics are unclean and must be shunned.

It’s exhausting.

 

[Deleted member 221201]

In an earlier post, I put down a link to a 40ft fall in a model 3.

I was genuinely surprised an all glass roof did not shatter or crack.
Would either of the auto editors @ ars like to follow up on this ?

Is it the glass ? or the B-pillar ? or ... just plain luck ? or some new manufacturing technique ?
(Apple's use of Corning's Gorilla glass came to mind here)

This would make an interesting article, as maybe other car makers are looking into the same tech, like the phone makers did

there are two types of glass used for automotive daylight openings (DLOs.)

- Safety (laminated) glass for the windshield. This is a "sandwich" of a layer of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) between two layers of standard plate glass. It cracks and shatters into shards just as easily as any plain glass window, but the PVB layer holds everything together to prevent glass daggers from entering the cabin

-Toughened (tempered) glass for everything else; side windows, backlites, and moonroofs. This kind of glass is made by heating plate glass above a certain temperature, then quenching the surface with water. this creates a ton of internal stresses with the outer surfaces in compression and the inner layer in tension. Toughened glass can withstand impacts, scratching, and bending a lot more than plain glass. And when it does break, it pops into thousands of little glass "pebbles" instead of shards.

so, however the car fell, nothing struck the roof panel severely enough to shatter it, and the body didn't bend/twist enough to do it either. I've seen other cars which were T-boned, and the side door glass was intact but with a much more pronounced curvature than it was supposed to have.

Gorilla Glass is another type of toughened glass, done via a chemical process rather than plain heat treatment. Gorilla Glass can be made in much thinner sheets than regular toughened glass.

Thanks for the info

 

[traumadog]

Let's level set here. Tesla's Model 3 performed better on NHTSA's "Vehicle Safety Score" than any other car ever. NHTSA does not dispute that fact.

NHTSA disputes comparison claims using VSS when those claims can be interpreted to suggest that a better VSS for Vehicle A than Vehicle B supports the conclusion that Vehicle A will be safer than Vehicle B in all scenarios. Tesla's claims don't clarify that there are specific circumstances where comparison using VSS won't be valid.

The specific circumstance NHSTA cites as an example where VSS comparisons are dubious is where Vehicle A has a crash with a significantly heavier vehicle, Vehicle B.

Tesla counters with two solid points in their response to NHTSA:

(1) As a matter of law, Tesla's claims only make the generic statement about overall likelihood of injury - they make no claims (implied or otherwise) about performance in specific crash scenarios (with a heavier vehicle, rolling over, setting on fire, etc.), AND

(2) the basis for taking the overall VSS score and applying it to real-life crash scenarios OVERALL, is that most crashes involving death or serious injury are not the weight-mismatch scenario that NHTSA highlighted.

Something around half of serious injuries/deaths occur in crashes that are single-vehicle , and, among multi-vehicle crashes, a significant percentage will involve vehicles that are going to be of similar or lesser weight than the Model 3 (which is about average in weight among light duty cars and trucks).

I appreciate NHTSA wanting to police the use of their data for representations made to consumers. And I also think it's appropriate for a consumer protection agency to confirm the validity of the evidence Tesla uses to support, in particular, Point 2 above (that their VSS comparison is valid for the majority of crash-types that result in serious injury or death).

But this is not the same, for example, as Musk's statement about having secured the funding for Tesla to be bought out or making irresponsible claims about when FSD will be truly available. Teslas really are exceptionally safe vehicles, and at least on certain tests, have outperformed all others, and - frankly - I think leaders in safety should be able to take credit for having done so.

To be clear, Tesla's claims may not specify circumstances where VSS may be invalid, but an absence of such a clarification tends to make the reader think there are no exceptions to the claim, not that the claim is valid for specific circumstances.

Honestly, I would think that actual empiric data - namely IIHS type data - would be a better talking point than NHTSA testing.

Heck, rollover scores are done as a static tilt test. Low-slung sports cars do well on this test, but empiric data clearly demonstrates that sports cars frequently roll over due to driver behavior.

Fortunately, businesses are not required to enumerate all specific instances where the general rule (i.e. so-and-so product is the safest) does not hold, so long as the general rule is true and supported by evidence and there are no clearly implied specific applications. Else, we would have a very difficult time communicating generally applicable rules.

It would be different if, in the context of any claim of being generally safer than other vehicles, Tesla implied that Model 3s would fair better than a heavier vehicle in a head on collision between the two (for example, if a commercial showed a Model 3 about to get into a collision with a bigger car/SUV). But that didn't happen here.

And I certainly agree that there are likely other stats/tests that car companies may want to rely on other than NHTSA's VSS.

Except the claim was

"Model 3 achieves the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle tested by NHTSA", followed by

"But when a crash happens in real life , these test results show that if you are driving a Tesla, you have the best chance of avoiding serious injury."

(Emphasis mine - note, it does not specify "under these test circumstances")

Now, the lawyerese of the Tesla response said they did not "claim Model 3 would outperform substantially heavier vehicles in a head to head crash...", it does leave open how any individual reading the previous quotes would come to the conclusion of a Tesla driver being less safe than a heavier vehicle in those circumstances.

Because presumably, any given reader would assume the heavier vehicle was tested by NHTSA as well, and that vehicle had a lower score - and therefore is less safe.

Except that Tesla's are actually quite heavy cars and unusually well built, so they will do very well against other cars, and there simply aren't many cars on the road significantly heavier.

That actually is accurate, which I did not expect when I started to look into the claim you stated.

Model 3 weight is 3600-4200lbs

Audi A8 weight is 4300lbs

BMW 5 series weight is 3700-4400lbs

BMW 7 series weight is 4200-4800lbs

Ford Taurus weight is 4000-4400lbs

Hyundai Equas weight is 4600lbs

Toyota Camry weight is 3200-3600lbs

Volvo V90 weigght is 4200lbs

There are certainly some that are much heavier, but they are not likely owned by very many.

Rolls Royce Phantom - 5600lbs

Bentley Mulsane - 6000lbs

Actually, many Rolls Royce and Bentley models are over 5000, as well as some Jaguars and a few others, so if you are in a Model 3, try to avoid hitting the fancy cars even if they look the same size.

Yes, the Model 3 is roughly on par weight wise to other large sedans. Of course, there is the flip-side argument:

The curb weights of some of the most popular vehicles sold in the US:

Ford F-150 (909,330 sold in 2018): 4415-5320 lbs
Chevrolet Silverado (585,581 in 2018): 4520-5240 lbs
Dodge Ram (536,980 sold in 2018): 4798-5232 lbs

Or if you like SUV's...

Ford Explorer (250,690 in 2018): 4345-4727 lbs
Toyota Highlander (244,511 in 2018): 4134-4508 lbs
Jeep Grand Cherokee (224,908 in 2018): 4513-5363 lbs
Chevrolet Tahoe (104,153 in 2018): 5355-5602 lbs

And of the premium versions:
Tesla Model X (26,100): 5185-5531 lbs
Cadillac Escalade (24,815 in 2018): 5578-5856 lbs
Lincoln Navigator (17,839 in 2018): 5673-5922 lbs


My point: the Model 3 would fare ok colliding with a similar sized sedan. That said, trucks and SUV's are much more popular in the US - and they both weigh more and ride higher.

And @jock2nerd: Tesla's statements didn't specify cars alone - but "any vehicles".

 

[Bush Ranger]

I have a couple of questions for the group:

1) Does violating 'Guidelines' in this case actually mean anything in a real and legal manner? I note that in the letter from the NHTSA they are forwarding their complaint to the FTC. Does the NHTSA have any legal standing itself?

2) The FTC received this ~10 months ago. I certainly understand government departments take a while to respond, but isn't this a little long to go without some response? Or is this one of those cases of a department being able to hold something over a company. "You know, we'e still reviewing that complaint we received."


{ And not to inflame the fire going on, but I'd love to see the upvote/downvote reasoning breakdown. I've seen some (what I consider) interesting posts downvoted to oblivion and some remarkably useless ones left completely unvoted. Maybe it's a case where coming back in 12 hours will generate a clearer picture. }

What happened is an anti-Tesla groups (pick your poison: but probably Shorts or Oil lobby) got hold of this old and relatively irrelevant information from last year and started pushing it out.

oh look, the fanboy is reading from the script again:

1) "anti-Tesla"
2) "shorts"
3) "big oil"
.
.
.
.

I used to think they were fanboys, but if you really talk to them you realize it’s a full-on cult. Tesla isn’t a car company, they’re a “save the world” company. Some of them even think Tesla is just the funding arm designed to get them to a Martian utopia. All who don’t agree aren’t just disagreeable or wrong, they’re shills, shorts, big oil, or just downright evil. Statements from The Leader are given enormous weight, any critics are unclean and must be shunned.

It’s exhausting.

Reminds me of Scientology

 

[LosAngelesPandas]

I used to like Tesla as a company and be excited by their products. Now between the marketing lies, the total disregard for human life in promoting their cruise control as "auto-pilot," the mistreatment of female employees, the manipulation of their stock value through illegal statements by their CEO, the necessity to agree that they can track your car at all times for usage data and product development, it just seems like a sleazey company that I don't trust. Is this what Musk is going for?

Making sure you don't buy one and make lots of money shorting the stock, probably.

 

[nivedita]

A friend of mine was recently in a head on collision at pretty decent speeds and the airbags didn’t even deploy - that’s how good crumple zones are these days (both cars were a mangled mess). And no there were no neck injuries.

Airbags deploying doesn't have all that much to do with crumple zones, actually. They deploy based on sensors, I believe in the front bumper, outside the crumple zones.

But, yes, I've also had friends in serious accidents where the airbag didn't deploy. And other friends whose airbag deployed with a minor fender bender.

Exactly why, I'm not sure.

I think the other commenter was saying that crumple zones have become so good at reducing decelerations in crashes that airbags don't always need to deploy (the sensors you mention measure the deceleration the car is experiencing).

Crumple zones don't reduce the deceleration of the car. Their purpose is to reduce the deceleration of the passenger compartment.

 

[MaskDeMasque]

This is a case where both sides are right.

(and where I'll be downvoted by readers who do fall on a particular side )

No, they are not. And bothsidesism only makes you look like an idiot when you intentionally ignore the reality.

 

[kkeane]

At the end of the day, this is the first new U.S automaker in the last 52 years & I would like to see a homegrown company beat the big boys

There have been tons of new US automakers in the last 52 years, although I can't think of may that are still around. Fisker comes to mind, as well as DeLorean. Saturn survived for quite a while (as a GM subsidiary, so I leave it up to you if that counts). There are also new-in-the-last-50-years manufacturers catering to niches, such as Saleen, Panoz, and several different offshoots of Shelby.