Back in September, a well-known Tesla hacker found Tesla vehicles with code that was directly linked to different safety organizations from around the globe. At the time, it raised questions as to whether Tesla could have been utilizing the code to cheat on safety tests and Euro NCAP opened up an investigation. Now, a new report indicates that it hasn’t found any evidence of Tesla attempting to cheat on the tests.
When first spotted by Green on Twitter (@GreenTheOnly), the code cast down on whether or not Tesla was playing by the rules during safety testing. Across the globe, Tesla vehicles tend to do incredibly well in safety testing. All the way back in 2013, Tesla went as far as to claim that it had set a new combined record of 5.4 stars in NHTSA safety testing.
Speaking to CNN, Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) program director Aled Williams said that “So far, Euro NCAP’s investigations have not revealed any evidence of an attempt to ‘cheat’ the tests by Tesla.” He also confirmed that Euro NCAP had reviewed recent software updates to Tesla test vehicles and found no faults.
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It’s worth noting that neither Tesla nor Euro NCAP or any other organization has offered a clear answer as to what the code in question actually does. Williams did say that the organization had been told that “the software code references to particular test programs like the Australian and Asian one – known as ANCAP – are used only to identify the region for which the car is configured.”
From that information he surmised that “Different regions (such as Europe, Australasia etc.) differ in terms of legislation as well as road conditions/markings etc… The recent addition of ANCAP to the code of Model Y coincides with the start of sales of that vehicle in Australasia.”
Green tells CNN that he’s not totally satisfied with that answer because Japan, which has its own unique signage and markings, isn’t listed in the software.
Tesla did tell the agency that it’s not using any sort of GPS tracking to identify when a vehicle is at a specific testing facility. So for now, it seems that Tesla is in the clear. We’ll keep you updated should Euro NCAP or another safety organization shed more light on the situation.
