It has been suspected for over a decade that Tesla is either intentionally cooking car data to avoid fault, or unable to engineer data integrity, or both. Now a lawsuit says it can prove that Tesla claims of driver fault in sudden acceleration crashes is actually a design flaw.

The family said that telematics data retrieved from the vehicle raises serious questions about the cause of the accident. According to the data, the accelerator pedal was allegedly pressed at 100 per cent displacement for six seconds, yet the vehicle’s speed increased by only 39km/h (24mph) – from 55.84 to 94.95km/h – a discrepancy they argue indicates the driver may have been pressing the brakes instead.

“Normally, we would rely on Event Data Recorder (EDR) data in such cases, but the fire destroyed it on impact,” Ha said. “However, this Tesla vehicle transmitted operational data via telematics to the company’s server, allowing us to review the vehicle’s speed and pedal input just before the crash.”