Since 2021, the NHTSA has required the manufacturers of self-driving systems to report crashes involving their technologies. This policy is part of the Standing General Order on Crash Reporting, designed to track real-world safety data and hold companies accountable for their self-driving systems.

This reporting offers helpful insight into how self-driving technology behaves in real-world conditions. However, as I began to review the NHTSA self-driving crash data for myself, I noticed something strange:

Tesla has requested a redaction on every crash report involving their self-driving technology.

Here’s what we found when we dug into the data to see what was behind the redactions.