"Brake door" solution, who does the driving data of new energy vehicles belong to?

Source: Beijing News

Asking for complete driving data, the female owner of the Shanghai Auto Show defended her rights and sued Tesla for filing a case

"Brake door" solution, who does the driving data of new energy vehicles belong to?

Getting the complete original driving data before the accident became Ms. Zhang's idea for a year.

What she calls "completeness" is not limited to time. Previously, under its successive "shelling", Tesla has provided data for the first 30 minutes of the accident, including 9 parameters such as speed and physical movement signal of the brake pedal, and the driving data content is as many as 48 pages.

"The data Tesla has provided us with is missing a lot of parameters." Voices in the industry also believe that the current data is not enough to judge the truth.

Recently, the Beijing News Shell financial reporter learned that last year, Ms. Zhang submitted materials to the court on the Tesla driving data dispute, which was accepted on March 12 this year, and then the case was filed, and the cause of the case was a personal information protection dispute.

This may be the first case of "new energy vehicle driving data dispute" in China. The dispute over the ownership of automobile driving data is also a microcosm of the rapid development of new energy vehicles and the breeding of contradictions.

In the new era of intelligent cars, the "old way" of relying on hardware to test whether the brakes are malfunctioning is no longer feasible, and software and system monitoring technology need to be improved urgently. "The truth is very important, but the truth is only one aspect", experts believe that the ownership of driving data caused by the Tesla rights protection incident is very important.

Nowadays, it is worth exploring how to implement the data ownership rights mentioned in laws and regulations, whether there is a regulatory and accountability mechanism for corporate behavior, and how the current mechanism can keep up with the rapid development of the new era of intelligent vehicles.

Confront Tesla in court

In early March, a light rain fell from Zhengzhou, Henan. The wind gradually rises, the grass spits green, and Zhengzhou begins to come out of the cold winter.

After waiting for nearly a year, Ms. Zhang received a text message notification that the case was accepted.

The year before, the smooth and smooth Tesla was in line with Ms. Zhang's wishes, she almost did not hesitate to buy a car, and also put a diamond-like label on the car, the sun shone down and shone.

By 2021, she had become the storm center of Tesla's "brake door" and was also saddled with the label of "Female Owner of The Roof Rights Defender at the Shanghai Auto Show".

After firmly believing that her vehicle "brake failure" and complaining fruitlessly, at the Shanghai Auto Show in April, Ms. Zhang stepped on the roof of tesla exhibition cars and shouted "Tesla brake failure", which also launched a "marathon" rights protection - in May, Ms. Zhang filed a reputation infringement lawsuit against Tesla Company and Tesla vice president Tao Lin. In July, it submitted relevant litigation materials to the Beiguan District People's Court of Anyang City, and filed a lawsuit on Tesla driving data and other aspects.

Shell financial reporter learned that in December last year, the right to reputation case has been publicly tried, and the driving data lawsuit was accepted on March 12 this year, and then filed.

"Request to order the defendant Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to provide the plaintiff himself with complete and true original driving data", Ms. Zhang wrote in the civil complaint presented to Shell Financial Reporter, on February 21, 2021, the plaintiff's Tesla car rear-ended other vehicles, causing serious accidents, in order to find out the cause of the accident, the plaintiff required the defendant Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to provide the defendant Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to provide the vehicle half an hour before the accident complete and true driving data, the defendant Tesla refused for various reasons.

"The personal information of natural persons is protected by law, the driving data of the plaintiff's vehicle belongs to the plaintiff's personal information, the plaintiff has the right to consult and copy the plaintiff's complete and true original driving data held by the defendant Tesla, and the defendant's behavior seriously infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff." The complaint alleges.

Ms. Zhang told Shell Financial Reporter that she still has not obtained complete driving data. It showed reporters the 30 minutes before the accident data provided by Tesla that this data has a total of 9 parameters, including speed, physical movement signal of the brake pedal, brake master cylinder pressure, ABS signal, acceleration pedal position, steering wheel steering angle, etc.

However, she believes that key data such as brake pedal displacement and motor torque have not been provided by Tesla.

Ms. Zhang said that after she learned that an accident occurred to the owner of a car bought at the same 4S store, Tesla also provided data. After comparison, it was found that the data parameters provided by Tesla to the two owners were not consistent.

This move makes it believe that Tesla actually records accident-related data, so it has the ability and obligation to provide comprehensive data to the owner. Her main appeal is to ask Tesla to provide complete driving data.

In this regard, on March 22, Shell financial reporters tried to verify this matter, and Tesla said that there was no response to the information.

Claiming for data also defends rights

Asking for driving data is blocked and is being experienced by more people.

Shanghai Tesla owner Xu Hui (pseudonym) told Shell Financial Reporter that Tesla said that to see the driving data, it must provide proof from the relevant departments.

According to its account, in September 2021, when he drove the Tesla Model S back to Shanghai after a vacation in Nantong, when the street was about to drop off his friends and children in the car, the vehicle that had slowed down suddenly automatically accelerated and rushed forward at a speed of 100 km / h, and the brakes completely failed. "I was forced to drive my car onto the road and hit two cars in a row before stopping."

The surveillance video provided by Xu Hui to the shell financial reporter showed that the Model S suddenly accelerated after decelerating, but it could not show the reason for the acceleration.

She then called the police and said tesla was notified at the same time. Tesla has since replied that Xu will step on the wrong acceleration pedal, which caused the vehicle to suddenly accelerate, and Tesla will not compensate or return the car. After that, she asked Tesla to provide vehicle driving data to determine or detect the cause of the accident.

The screenshot issued by Xu Hui to the shell financial reporter shows that Tesla said that it can provide data, "but it needs to be issued by the public prosecutor's office or the regulatory department" and "it is not an accident certificate." After many questions, Tesla did not reply to this.

Another screenshot provided by Ms. Xu shows that the traffic police in charge of the accident said that the police could not issue the above certificate.

In the process of requesting driving data, some people also reported that the content obtained was insufficient.

On December 24, 2021, a Tesla crashed into the river in Liyang, Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, and two people in the car were injured and died after being rescued by the hospital.

The family of the deceased told Shell Financial Reporter that after the accident, Tesla provided part of the driving data, recording the driving data of the car between 12:06:57 and 12:16:38 on December 24, 2021.

Family members believe that the driving data provided by Tesla still lacks key data, such as ABS, brake pedal angle, motor speed, airbag data, active brake system related data, etc. When the Shell financial reporter interviewed, the family still believed that the data obtained was full of doubts, and listed that page 4, 12:16 minutes 32 seconds 764 minutes to accelerate the pedal was 3.6%, 12:16 minutes 33 seconds 776 minutes to accelerate the pedal rose to 100%, and continued until 12:16 minutes 36 minutes 056 minutes and seconds. During this period, Tesla had 4 brake signal trigger records.

"The driver is full of accelerator pedals, the acceleration pedal is 100%, why is there another 4 brake records in this case?" The family expressed confusion.

Crack the "brake failure" and ownership disputes

Last year, Ms. Zhang said she received a pre-litigation mediation opinion inquiry letter from the Qingpu District People's Court in Shanghai. Tesla demanded an apology and 5 million yuan in damages to its right to reputation.

Recently, Ms. Zhang told Shell Financial Reporter that she has not received a notice of trial so far.

Previously, Tesla officially sued tens of millions of fans of Internet celebrity "Xiaogang Senior", suing him for violating the right to reputation, and also extended the "Tesla brake failure" incident until 2022.

Since the Shanghai Auto Show was defended, Tesla has been involved in several lawsuits and has become a rights defender. Last year, in response to Wenzhou car owners repeatedly saying in online platforms or media interviews that "brake failure, automatic acceleration", Tesla asked the court to order the defendant to pay 500,000 yuan in damages for infringement.

The dispute over the ownership of driving data has fermented, which has become one of the challenges brought by the popularity of new energy vehicles to the industry.

A number of industry insiders told Shell Financial Reporter that it is obvious that in the Ms. Zhang incident, Tesla can still provide more data, especially the data in the motor torque and black box EDR, which has become the key to breaking the problem.

"The missing parameters of this data are indeed very many, such as only writing the physical movement signal of the brake pedal with or without it, but the normal data should be given a specific degree, especially like the algorithm of the new energy vehicle is the signal of the car to judge the state of the person." Tianming, a vehicle calibration engineer at the main engine factory, told Shell Financial Reporter.

In April last year, Tesla promised that the company would unreservedly cooperate with the regulatory authorities to carry out in-depth investigations, and was willing to witness the testing by any qualified authoritative testing institution nationwide with the consent of customers, government designation or supervision.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, told reporters that at present, the institutions on the market are basically only for mature, research and development of relatively long-term technology for testing, Tesla's software and systems are relatively new for some institutions, it is difficult for institutions to detect, even if it can be detected, the process is relatively long.

Previously, the Beijing News shell financial reporter randomly called a number of car testing agencies, the other side said that it is possible to test the hardware of the vehicle, but if there is a problem with the software or system, the existing technology of the institution cannot guarantee the detection.

The other party explained that if the vehicle has brake failure, it will generally not be a hardware problem, most of which is a software problem, which can be identified by THE OBD full vehicle computer detection to read the engine and gearbox data, but Tesla obtains data through its own internal sensors and monitoring equipment and transmits it back to the headquarters, and the external technical means cannot do it, "even the approximate (data) cannot be read."

The other party further said that if Tesla is willing to provide historical data, such as stepping on the brakes on the highway but not slowing down, the brake lights have been on but not significantly decelerating, these data may confirm that Tesla may have brake failure problems, but this can only be provided by the brand.

"Car companies provide data, but the data is incomplete, such a situation is very rare", Mengwei, an engineer at the Shanghai Auto Parts Testing Laboratory, said that taking this opportunity, if we can promote the improvement of the data system in the automotive industry chain, there will be similar things in the future, and there can be laboratories and processing institutions to properly solve the problem, which is also the significance of this matter.

"Tesla's thinking about this matter also lies in how to accurately judge the driving status of a car, and what parameters a car company needs to provide to ensure that the owner clearly understands the status of his vehicle, which also makes a reference for consumers after this," Mengwei said.

He said that as far as the data obtained so far, it is not possible to draw the conclusion of "Tesla brake failure", but to make a comprehensive and accurate judgment, it is indeed necessary to cooperate with triaxial data, measurement acceleration, motor torque, EDR and other aspects of data to judge, the current information is not enough.

"The truth is very important, but the truth is only one aspect", Wang Miao, a researcher at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Shell Financial Reporter that how to improve the corporate regulatory accountability mechanism triggered by the Tesla rights protection incident, the ownership of data privacy and how to protect is also very important, "Now that smart cars are becoming popular, driverless technology is constantly developing, and the relevant contradictions may be more prominent in the future."

Wang Miao said that with the continuous progress of technology, the relevant departments should make good use of this opportunity to establish an expert database, and when regulators, car owners, and car companies can obtain professional data, let the expert database with enough credibility and authority to convince the public, do an open and fair restoration for everyone, no matter who is right and who is wrong, everyone can get positive feedback.

■ Clarification of doubts

Should car companies provide driving data?

Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automobile Industry Innovation Research Center of The North China University of Technology and an analyst in the automotive industry, said that the driving data, including brakes and steering wheel steering, are all data generated by the behavior of the owner, so this data should also belong to the owner.

For the question of who the Tesla data belongs to, Zhao Zhanzhang, a lawyer at Beijing Yunjia Law Firm and a special researcher of the Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told Shell Financial Reporter that the driving data of Tesla vehicles includes location information, whereabouts, etc. These driving data can fully identify the true identity of the owner by combining with the vehicle driving license.

According to the Civil Code, the Cybersecurity Law and other laws and regulations, the driving data of Tesla vehicles belongs to the scope of personal information, and the owner of the car has legal rights to this.

Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told Shell Financial Reporter that many new energy vehicles now collect data through relevant monitoring equipment inside and outside the car to support related technologies such as assisted driving of the car, so these data are data for personal identity information, such as whereabouts, vehicle driving routes, etc., which are personal information.

He said that under the premise of agreeing that these data are personal information, article 1034 of the Civil Code stipulates that personal information is recorded electronically or otherwise and can be used alone or in combination with other information to identify a specific natural person, including whereabouts information. In addition, according to the regulations, natural persons may consult or copy their personal information from information processors in accordance with law.

The reporter learned that He Xiaorong, vice president of the Supreme People's Court, once said that the problem of personal information being abused is becoming increasingly serious, and in order to strengthen the protection of personal information, a new cause of action has been added according to article 1034 and other provisions of the Civil Code. The cause of the "Personal Information Protection Dispute" was newly established on December 30, 2020.

Zhu Wei said that it is precisely because the Civil Code makes provisions on this that car owners have the right to claim rights from car companies and obtain their personal information collected.

It is worth mentioning that last year, the five departments jointly issued the "Several Regulations on the Safety Management of Automobile Data Security (Trial)", which will be implemented from October 1, 2021. It states that "automotive data processors handling personal information shall inform individuals of the following matters: access to and reproduction of their personal information... ways and means".

As for the car owner's concern about the data being tampered with, Zhu Wei said that the Civil Code also stipulates that information processors must not disclose or tamper with the personal information they collect and store.

In Zhu Wei's view, car owners as the main body, regardless of whether the vehicle is running normally, they can ask the car company for driving data, "even if the owner did not have a car accident, just want to see the brake data they stepped on, it is also OK."

For the situation that the owners believe that they cannot get the complete driving data, Zhu Wei suggested that the owners go to the grass-roots court to sue.

Can black boxes solve the data dilemma?

In April 2021, the "Technical Conditions for the Safety of Motor Vehicle Operation" was revised to require new cars to be equipped with black boxes, which stipulate the data that black boxes should record, which are divided into A and B classes. Among them, The Level A data requirement starts to be recorded from January 1, 2022, and the Level B data requirement starts recording from January 1, 2024.

Among them, the A-class data includes the position of the accelerator pedal, the longitudinal acceleration, the state of the anti-lock braking system, the maximum recorded longitudinal delta-V, the time to reach the longitudinal maximum delta-V, the driving brake state, the driver's seat belt status, the acceleration pedal position, etc.

Class B data elements include lateral acceleration, brake pedal position, inclination angular velocity, steering angle, and more. Among them, the position of the brake pedal is required by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to be recorded by the black box from January 1, 2024.

Shell financial reporter noted that the driving data provided by Tesla to Ms. Zhang includes 9 parameters, but does not include specific data such as brake pedal position and motor torque, but only writes whether the physical movement signal of the brake pedal has or does not.

Shell financial reporter learned that each Tesla comes with EDR (Event Data Recorder), that is, an accident data recorder, which can be seen as a black box on the car. The black box EDR is used to record and collect information before and after the occurrence of a vehicle accident for easy post-analysis.

Zhang Xiang told reporters that at present, the penetration rate and loading rate of black boxes in China are relatively low, about 10%-20%, generally appearing in luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The loading rate of black boxes in foreign countries is relatively high, and it is also required to install black boxes in second-hand cars and old cars.

As for its use, Zhang Xiang said that if there is a car owner who has not obtained driving data, or believes that his driving data is incomplete, he can buy his own tools and download them from the black box. However, the car is installed with a black box, extracting the EDR data in it also has a certain degree of difficulty, such as the need for special data cables and other tools when extracting, in order to extract the data into the computer, ordinary consumers generally do not spend so much money to buy tools, after the purchase, the entire reading process also has a certain degree of difficulty.

The reporter learned that if you need to read the EDR data, the owner needs to log on to the Tesla English official website, buy an external battery and data cable, and connect the black box of the vehicle to get the data compression package in the computer login software. After that, you also need to re-upload the obtained data package to the website for decoding to view the report. At present, the above data cable has not been open for sale to Chinese mainland, and it needs to be purchased from North America and other places.

According to the China Automobile Association, in February this year, the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 334,000 units, an increase of 204.4% year-on-year, and the penetration rate of new energy in the industry reached 22.9% in the month, and the penetration rate of new energy in passenger cars reached 22.0%. The National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Conference previously predicted that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2022 will be about 22%, and the penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles can reach about 25%.

Zhang Xiang said that laws and policies have now begun to pay attention to black boxes, which is actually an inevitable phenomenon brought about by the development of new energy vehicles and intelligent vehicles.

"The mainland new energy vehicle, intelligent car industry has just started but developed rapidly, there are many new technologies still need to wait for the test of time, it is precisely because of the change in the development trend of the automotive industry, the issue of driving data ownership has been more controversial and concerned than in previous years," Zhang Xiang told Shell Financial Reporter.

"As assisted driving begins to become popular, the sensors, decisions and execution of many cars are closely related to smart parts, and the brakes and steering wheels of vehicles will be calculated by the on-board chip to issue instructions, and once there is a calculation error, there is a great need for a black box to expose the truth," Zhang xiang said.

Tesla announced in May 2021 that it has established a data center in China to localize data storage and will gradually add more local data centers. All data generated from the sale of vehicles in the Chinese mainland market will be stored in the territory. At the same time, the vehicle information inquiry platform will be opened to car owners. At the time, Tesla said the work was in full swing.

Timeline of Tesla driving data ownership controversy (partial)

April 19, 2021

At the Tesla booth at the Shanghai International Auto Show, Ms. Zhang stood on the roof of a Tesla car and repeatedly shouted "Tesla brake failure." On the same day, Tesla responded that it did not compromise on unreasonable demands.

On the evening of April 20

Tesla apologized and said it was responsible to the end. At present, a special handling team has been set up to do its best to meet the demands of car owners and make car owners satisfied under the condition of compliance and legality.

On the evening of April 22

Tesla provided one-minute data on previously suspected "brake failure" accidents. Tesla said that the company consulted legal people, because the data belongs to the privacy of the owner, unless the owner releases it himself, tesla is not convenient to disclose more data. According to Tesla, in the 30 minutes before the accident, the vehicle had more than 40 records of depressing the brake pedal.

April 22

Tesla responded to the Shell financial reporter in person that the company has taken the initiative to contact the Zhengzhou Zhengdong Market Supervision Bureau and report the progress, and will provide the original data of the vehicle half an hour before the incident to the owner of the car in Anyang, Henan. Tesla said it could provide an electronic version or mailing it to the husband of the female owner. For the previous statement that the female owner's family questioned Tesla's modification and deletion of data, Tesla said that the vehicle data is the vehicle gateway reading the signals of each component in the car and storing it in encrypted form. The stored data is recorded by encryption technology, and the relevant data cannot be directly read, modified or deleted. In the event of product quality disputes, Tesla will provide true and complete vehicle data in accordance with the law.

May

Ms. Zhang filed a defamation infringement lawsuit against Tesla and Tesla Vice President Tao Lin.

June 3

Shell financial reporter interviewed Ms. Che In Zhengzhou, Henan Province. During the three-hour conversation, the female owner released for the first time 48 pages of 30 minutes of Traffic Data before the Tesla accident and questioned the data.

Ms. Zhang said that her main appeal is to obtain the complete original driving data before the vehicle accident. After suing Tesla for reputation rights, she will continue to sue tesla's claim to provide complete data.

July

The State Internet Information Office, the National Development and Reform Commission and other five departments jointly issued the "Several Regulations on the Safety Management of Automotive Data (Trial)", which will be implemented from October 1, 2021. It states that car data processors handling personal information should inform individuals of the following matters: access to and reproduction of their personal information... Ways and means.

September 27

Ms. Zhang said that she received a pre-litigation mediation opinion consultation letter from the Qingpu District People's Court in Shanghai. Tesla demanded an apology and 5 million yuan in damages to its right to reputation. Recently, Ms. Zhang told reporters that she has not received a notice of trial so far.

March 12, 2022

Ms. Zhang's lawsuit against Tesla's driving data case was accepted by the Beiguan District People's Court in Anyang City, Henan Province, and the case was subsequently filed, and the cause of the case was a personal information protection dispute.

The complaint alleges that it requested that the defendant Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. be ordered to provide the plaintiff with complete and true original driving data. "The personal information of natural persons is protected by law, the driving data of the plaintiff's vehicle belongs to the plaintiff's personal information, the plaintiff has the right to consult and copy the plaintiff's complete and true original driving data held by the defendant Tesla, and the defendant's behavior seriously infringes the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff," the complaint reads.

Beijing News shell financial reporter Lin Zi