This is one of the stronger conclusions by, of all things, $TSLAQ Twitter. The conclusion is derived from the fact that Elon's plane made two very recent visits to D.C., that none of the actual salespeople were prepared, and that there is precedent of companies under investigation to pre-comply with DoJ requests to drastically reduce charges under settlement.
Most of these $TSLAQ people are, of course, short-sellers, so take it with a fair bit of salt.
> What does the Department of Justice have to do with anything?
While I haven't heard anything about the DoJ related to the self-driving feature, how they might be involved is pretty obvious:
The DoJ prosecutes federal crimes, including, reportedly, a recent criminal referral from the SEC.
While the trigger for that was Musk's tweets, federal criminal investigations aren't narrowly restricted to the conduct which triggered them; Tesla has made representations, regarding the self-driving feature to investors as well as consumers; to the extent those representations did not fully accurately represent Tesla’s knowledge, and materially impacts Telsa’s expected costs and outlook, that's a potentially criminal securities fraud.
Hundreds of disengagements, all in a few days in October 2016.
Consistent with multiple attempts of filming their self driving promo.
No disengagements apart from that in 2 years.
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/f1873c87-4f21-4beb...