Tesla Probed by US Agency Over Reporting Crashes Months Late

Article

US auto safety regulators are looking into delays by Tesla Inc. in reporting details of crashes involving driver-assistance technology.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has identified multiple incident reports from the automaker that were submitted “several months or more” after the crashes occured, according to a filing posted to the agency’s website. Under an agency order, companies were generally required to file such reports within one or five days of receiving notice of a crash, NHTSA said.

The delays were “due to an issue with Tesla’s data collection, which, according to Tesla, has now been fixed,” NHTSA said. The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation has opened a so-called audit query to assess the cause of the late reports and mitigation efforts to prevent future occurrences.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new probe heightens scrutiny of the automaker and its driver-assistance systems, which Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sees as crucial to the company’s future growth. Tesla markets its technology under names such as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, and the company recently began a driverless-taxi service in its home city of Austin.

NHTSA has multiple active inquiries targeting Tesla, including a probe of whether its Full Self-Driving system is defective after multiple crashes, including at least one involving a fatality.

Tesla shares fell were little changed at 10:24 a.m. in New York.

Carmakers including Tesla are required under a government order put in place under former President Joe Biden to share details of crashes involving the use of driver-assistance systems and more advanced automated-driving systems. Companies face penalties of as much as $27,874 per violation per day, with a maximum fine of more than $139 million, for violating the reporting provisions of the order.

Under President Donald Trump, NHTSA loosened some aspects of the crash-reporting requirements earlier this year.

Photo: A Tesla vehicle drives off the lot at the company’s store in Warminster, Pennsylvania, US, on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. Tesla Inc. is scheduled to release earnings figures on July 23. (Joe Lamberti/Bloomberg)