Tesla’s claims concerning the protection of its Model 3 electrical vehicle prompted U.S. regulators to deliver an cease-and-desist correspondence and escalate the matter by requesting the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, based on files released by the nonprofit legal transparency website PlainSite.
The records reveal correspondence between the lawyers at National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Tesla that started after the automaker’s October 7 site article that stated the Model 3 had attained the lowest likelihood of injury of any vehicle the agency ever examined. PlainSite obtained the 79 pages of communications as January 2018 between NHTSA and Tesla via a Freedom of Information Act petition. There were 450 pages of communicating that were withheld due to Tesla’s petition for confidentiality on the grounds of “transaction keys. ”
NHTSA took issue with the website article, asserting that Tesla’s promises were inconsistent with its advertising guidelines regarding collision ratings. The matter may have ended with that requirement. However, NHTSA took the issue further and educated Tesla it’d ask the Federal Trade Commission to consider in.
“This isn’t the first time that Tesla has ignored the guidelines within a matter that may lead to consumer confusion and give Tesla an unfair market advantage,” the correspondence dated October 17 reads. “We have hence also called this matter to the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection to inquire if these statements represent unfair or deceptive acts or practices. ”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
The automaker’s lawyers did, but push back against NHTSA’s petition, as stated by the correspondence released by PlainSite. Tesla lawyers argue in one letter that the company’s statements were neither “false nor misleading. ”
“To another, Tesla has provided consumers with fair and objective information to compare the relative safety of vehicles using 5-star total evaluations,” the correspondence out of Tesla’s deputy general counsel.
The documents posted by PlainSite also showed NHTSA requested sales data on all Tesla vehicles produced since July 2016 with or without Autopilot, the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system. The agency also issued subpoenas to Tesla ordering it to generate information on many crashes, such as a January 25, 2019 crash in San Ramon, Calif.. The subpoenas requested information about the vehicle, its owner, videos and history and images related to the crash and were to be transmitted to NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigations.
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