Euro Ncap Responds To Tesla's Suspicious Codes: No Evidence Of Cheating In Crash Tests
Tesla cars have always performed very well in safety crash tests and have passed the tests of the world's leading crash testers. Last month, European testers and Australian testers released data showing that Tesla models successfully passed the tests with the highest scores.
However, white hat hacker and Tesla software expert "Green God" @Greentheonly found something different in Tesla's code, suggesting that Tesla is offering different versions of the software for testing in China, the EU, and Korea.
The report then led to an investigation by Euro NCAP, which provided an update to CNN.
Aled Williams, European Euro NCAP program director, said there is no evidence that Tesla used code cheating in its tests: The integrity of the star rating scheme is critical to Euro NCAP, and we will continue to do everything we can to ensure that ratings reflect the safety consumers expect from their vehicles. So far, Euro NCAP's investigation has not found any evidence that Tesla tried to "cheat" the tests.
The organization reportedly examined software updates for Tesla's test vehicles and ultimately found no problems. The biggest concern for users was the "geo-fencing" of some features, such as those set up by Tesla in the FSD Beta program, but the agency said that was not the case: It was possible that GPS positioning was used to identify whether the car was on a particular test track. This is one of the possibilities that we raised with Tesla, but they absolutely deny it.
As to why Tesla has codes in the software for the major safety agencies, they responded that the European NCAP and ANCAP software codes are "only used to identify the region in which the car is configured".
Aled Williams added: There are differences in legislation, road conditions/signs, etc. in different regions (e.g. Europe, Oceania, etc.). The recent addition of ANCAP to the code of the Model Y coincides with the start of sales of the model in Oceania.
Of course, there's no way to satisfy everyone with this answer, but the "green god" also said that Japan also uses different road markings that are not present in the Euro NCAP and ANCAP software, suggesting that Tesla has another method of region identification in its software.
Musk often touts the safety of his vehicles, saying they are the safest ever made. While some may doubt Musk's claims, data from global crash test facilities has proven that Tesla's models are indeed very safe, especially the new Model 3 and Model Y. After all, it's impossible for all test facilities to be wrong at the same time.