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A Tesla Crash Just Got More Complicated After Key Data Went Missing

By Simran Rastogi Autoblog

A Tesla Model Y taxi crashed heavily in Bergen, Norway, in 2023, plowing through one of the city's busiest public squares. Somehow, despite the car reaching 56 mph and launching into a kiosk, nobody died. The driver, a sober 12-year veteran taxi driver, had insisted from the start that the car malfunctioned. When the vehicle was sent to an independent analyst, he found the dashboard partially dismantled and electrical connections severed. Motor reports a critical piece of hardware, the network card linking the vehicle to Tesla's servers, was missing. It remains unclear when or by whom it was taken. The defense attorney has called for a full independent investigation, including a potential police raid on Tesla's servers.

Motor.no
Motor.no Motor.no

The Data Does Not Add Up

Dashcam footage shows the car reversing into a parking spot before suddenly lurching forward, jumping the curb, and plowing through outdoor seating. Then, after a brief pause, it accelerated again. Tesla's event data recorder showed the accelerator pedal depressed throughout both impacts. But the brake lights were clearly on during the crash, and independent experts have argued that electronic faults or software errors could produce identical accelerator signals without the driver's foot ever touching the pedal. There was also a six-second gap in Tesla's data, the exact window between the two collisions, that the company says it simply does not have. Bergen police closed the case in December 2024, unable to determine whether the crash was driver error or mechanical failure. The driver was eventually cleared. The missing network card is the one component most likely to have contained those six lost seconds of data.

Motor.no
Motor.no Motor.no

Vital Crash Evidence Has a Habit Of Getting Lost

This is not the first time Tesla's handling of crash data has raised red flags. In a 2019 fatal Autopilot crash in Florida, the car uploaded a full data snapshot to Tesla's servers within minutes, then deleted its local copy, making Tesla the only party with access. When police asked for help, a Tesla technician claimed the data was corrupted. Forensic analysis later proved it was intact and had been accessed by Tesla that same day. A jury found Tesla 33 percent liable and ordered it to pay over $240 million. The missing Norwegian network card is hard to view in isolation from that history but it remains to be seen what comes of the renewed investigation.

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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 6:00 PM.