Tesla has three days to hand over self-driving vehicle data, or it will face the wrath of the US Government (or a transport-related branch of it anyway). The demand is part of an investigation into the estimated 2,882,566 Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD (Supervised) or FSD (Beta).
Specifically, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wants data related to traffic violations, including vehicles running red lights, making illegal turns, and driving the wrong way. Which is oddly similar to what an anti-self-driving organization warned us all about in one of the wackiest Super Bowl commercials of the last few years.
The driving system formerly known as FSD, is rated as “Level-2.” This means someone needs to be in the driver’s seat and paying attention at all times. Technically, if the vehicle does something wrong, it’s the driver’s job to step in and most of the legal liability still falls on said driver.
With that being said, the NHTSA is investigating if these incidents occur in such a way that the driver could not reasonably react or intervene. Humans have reaction times, and can panic when something unexpected happens, after all. So if a Tesla did accelerate past a stop sign at the last second, or just swerve into the wrong lane on a whim, there’s a chance the driver could not react fast enough to prevent a crash.
We also know that 58 incidents related to this issue were reported. This includes 23 injuries, from 14 crashes. There are no fatalities related to this issue on record.
Tesla has until March 9th to comply, but as Elon Musk likes having his day in court Tesla could continue to resist. Even without the lawyers doing their thing, there’s a big question mark over the NHTSA’s ability to effectively punish a company like Tesla for non-compliance in this and similar situations.
What happens if Tesla ignores the NHTSA’s request?
If you follow Tesla, you’ll know that the company has a long history of delay tactics and straight non-compliance when it comes to this kind of thing. Elon Musk loves having his day in court. It has already extended this particular deadline twice, though the NHTSA will run out of patience eventually.
Last year, Elon Musk’s main company had to hand over $243 million in damages after failing to hand over evidence in a wrongful death lawsuit involving an Autopilot-driven vehicle in Miami. Tesla said it didn’t have the data that the court was looking for, then the family of the deceased hired a hacker who managed to pull it from the car. Tesla then admitted the data in question was on its servers all along.
Then there’s Tesla’s attitude to cease and desist orders. Back in 2019, the NHTSA told the Texas-based manufacturer to stop making misleading statements about the Model 3’s safety ratings. Tesla essentially ignored the order. The NHTSA does not really have much control over advertising practices so all it could do is refer the case to the Federal Trade Commission.
Tesla didn’t have as much luck with the State of California, which found the term “Full Self Driving” misleading and forced Tesla to change the name of its full self driving system in February 2026.
Finally, there’s the issue that essentially led to the current situation. Tesla failed to comply with a federal regulation that requires automakers to report crashes involving level 2 self driving systems within five days.
The NHTSA isn’t completely powerless. It can fine Tesla just short of $28,000 per day, each day, up to a maximum of $139.4 million. To the average person, this is a significant threat. To a company like Tesla, not so much. Elon Musk personally makes an estimated $236 million to over $698 million per day, so he could theoretically pay off the maximum fine while stuck in commuter traffic on his way home from work.
That is, if he had a nine to five job, and didn’t have a private jet. So the deadline is looming, but Tesla simply may not care.
