The Office of Defects Investigation (“ODI”) has identified numerous incident reports submitted by
Tesla, Inc. (“Tesla”) in response to Standing General Order 2021-01 (the “SGO”), in which the
reported crashes occurred several months or more before the dates of the reports. The majority
of these reports involved crashes in which the Standing General Order in place at the time
required a report to be submitted within one or five days of Tesla receiving notice of the crash.
When the reports were submitted, Tesla submitted them in one of two ways. Many of the reports
were submitted as part of a single batch, while others were submitted on a rolling basis.

Preliminary engagement between ODI and Tesla on the issue indicates that the timing of the
reports was due to an issue with Tesla’s data collection, which, according to Tesla, has now been
fixed. NHTSA is opening this Audit Query, a standard process for reviewing compliance with legal
requirements, to evaluate the cause of the potential delays in reporting, the scope of any such
delays, and the mitigations that Tesla has developed to address them. As part of this review,
NHTSA will assess whether any reports of prior incidents remain outstanding and whether the
reports that were submitted include all of the required and available data.