Tesla ‘phantom braking’ means self-driving tech is not safe, says whistleblower
A former Tesla employee says he believes the technology powering the firm’s self-driving vehicles is not safe to be used on public roads.
Lukasz Krupski said: “I don’t think the hardware is ready and the software is ready. It affects all of us because we are essentially experiments in public roads. So even if you don’t have a Tesla, your children still walk on the footpath,” he told the BBC.
Mr Krupski said he had found evidence in company data which suggested that aspects of the safe operation of vehicles with a certain level of autonomous or assistive-driving technology had not been followed.
Tesla employees confirmed to him, he said, a phenomenon of vehicles randomly braking in response to non-existent obstacles – known as “phantom braking”. This also arose in data he obtained about customer complaints.
Mr Krupski said he had felt compelled to share what he had found with safety and data protection authorities after first trying to go to his superiors.
The documents showed that dozens of Tesla employees reported how their vehicles braked independently, and for no apparent reason, when the autopilot was switched on, sometimes at high speeds. Tesla boss Elon Musk has been praising autopilot as a safety feature for years.
According to Mr Krupski, he alerted the authorities after his warnings did not get through internally. He then leaked internal documents to German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
He said he obtained access to the data by entering simple search terms in an internal company website, raising questions about how Tesla protected the privacy of thousands of employees and its own secrets.
The Data Protection Authority in the Netherlands, where Tesla has its European headquarters, said it was investigating whether the breach violated EU privacy laws.
Some of the safety information about Tesla’s autopilot system has also been shared with US car safety officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The safety agency has been undertaking a long-running investigation into aspects of Tesla’s safety record, especially the software. The agency has reportedly interviewed Mr Krupski several times.
Tesla insists its autopilot system makes cars safer, and recently won a California legal battle which alleged the software was responsible for a fatal crash. Tesla has informed its employees and tightened data protection rules.
Mr Krupski, 38, was sacked for alleged poor time keeping and bad behaviour. He is seeking to sue Tesla for compensation but cannot yet afford to bring the case.
He claims his problems stem from an incident in an Oslo car showroom where he was working for Tesla as a technician. When a car battery caught fire he extinguished the flames with his bare hands. His actions brought praise from Elon Musk himself, but Norweigan Tesla executives reportedly took against him when he pointed out to the billionaire the lack of fire safety precautions in the building.
Tesla has denied treating him unfairly and has claimed he misappropriated confidential company information. A Norwegian court has made an order restricting Mr Krupski not to distribute any more Tesla company information. The court also seized his laptop, which is reported to have been passed over to Tesla.
Mr Krupski said that by becoming a whistleblower against the car company, his life had become “terrifying”. He told the BBC: “I barely sleep at night sometimes.”
His actions have been recognised by others. He has been awarded the Blueprint for Free Speech Whistleblowing Prize.
Accepting the award, he said: “I have this image of the scariest situation imaginable. You are driving a car and the car just veers off, does something unexpected and on the footpath there are small children from nursery in their high visibility vests walking along in pairs, and the car just ploughs through them.
“That was what was telling me that I had to do something about it. I couldn’t live with myself if that is something that could happen and I had the opportunity to raise it to the authorities.”
Tesla has been approached for comment.
