--- title: "In Court for Fatal Crash, Tesla Admits It Wasn’t Even Tracking Autopilot Crashes for the First Three Years of the Program" description: "With so many massive and well-publicized security fails, nothing should surprise us about Tesla's internal culture — but new revelations from the country's first federal Autopilot crash trial did, in fact, shock us. As Law360 reports, an engineer at Elon Musk's car company revealed during a wrongful death trial this week that until 2018, the company didn't keep records of Autopilot crashes — even though the assisted driving feature was rolled out three years prior. In a taped deposition shown to jurors in the federal case against Tesla, which stems from a wrongful death lawsuit involving a young woman who […]" date: "2025-07-19" modified: "2025-07-19" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/tesla-autopilot-tracking" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "autopilot" - "lawsuits" - "safety" - "tesla" --- # In Court for Fatal Crash, Tesla Admits It Wasn’t Even Tracking Autopilot Crashes for the First Three Years of the Program ![A Tesla engineer has admitted that the company did not keep records on Autopilot crashes for its first three years deployed.]() *\Image: Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* With [so many]() [massive]() and [well-publicized]() safety issues, nothing should surprise us about [Tesla's internal culture]() — but new revelations from the country's [first federal Autopilot crash trial]() have us shaken once again. As [*Law360* reports](), an engineer at Elon Musk's car company revealed during a wrongful death trial this week that until 2018, the company didn't even keep records of Autopilot crashes — even though the assisted driving feature had been [rolled out three years prior](). In a taped deposition shown to jurors in the federal case against Tesla, which stems from a wrongful death lawsuit involving a young woman who was killed by a distracted driver who'd been using Autopilot, software engineer Akshay Phatak admitted that keeping such records was not part of the company's early compliance practices. Tesla has, as the report notes, tried to keep that deposition out of the trial centered around the 2019 Florida crash that killed 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and caused a brain injury for her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. Model S driver George McGee had reached to pick up his dropped cell phone when operating in Autopilot and, when his eyes were off the road, plowed through a stop sign and into the pair, who were stargazing on the side of the road. That driver, McGee, settled with the plaintiffs after pleading no-contest to reckless driving in 2019 and was sentenced to a mere 16 hours of traffic school, *Law360* notes. Tesla, on the other hand, declined to settle, leading Angulo and Benavides' family to confront the company in court, alleging that its overhyped [marketing about Autopilot's capabilities]() had resulted in the fatal crash. "I feel like we were experimented on," [Angulo told Miami's *NBC* affiliate]() back in 2023, "and this technology was out on the road before it was safe." Along with trying to spin Benavides' death and Angulo's maiming as a result of reckless driving and not Autopilot, Tesla attorney Joel Smith insisted that the assisted driving feature wasn't even engaged during the crash because he'd put his foot on the gas pedal, which disables the glorified cruise control. The attorney went on to say that when McGee accelerated, he was met with a message on his car's screen that said he could not brake when using cruise control — a confusing detail in an already-complex case, and one that could well shoot Tesla in the foot as the trial progresses. In such an undeniably complicated trial, these strange admissions from Tesla representatives seem to show the company's hand even while it tries to prove a point. If Autopilot was so important to the company's future, why were there no crash records for its first three years it was deployed — and why did it bar McGee from braking, which could have saved Benavides' life? **More on Autopilot:** [*Elon Musk Lost It on a Call With the Government After Autopilot Killed a Tesla Driver*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()