Whoopsie Doodle

They lie about everything.

Years after a Tesla driver using Autopilot plowed into a young Florida couple in 2019, crucial electronic data detailing how the fatal wreck unfolded was missing. The information was key for a wrongful death case the survivor and the victim’s family were building against Tesla, but the company said it didn’t have the data.

Then a self-described hacker, enlisted by the plaintiffs to decode the contents of a chip they recovered from the vehicle, found it while sipping a Venti-size hot chocolate at a South Florida Starbucks. Tesla later said in court that it had the data on its own servers all along.

The hacker’s discovery would become a key piece of evidence presented during a trial that began last month in Miami federal court, which dissected the final moments before the collision and ended in a historic $243 million verdict against the company.