[i_am_jl]

This is my feeling as well, but to play devil's advocate; what settings could Tesla tweak to cheat on a crash test? I'm struggling to think what software tweaks Tesla could be implementing during a test that would game the results of the crash.

Airbag/seatbelt tensioner timings? Maybe lowering the threshold for their deployment? Maybe something sort of software-triggered fuse to make the battery safe?

[Sohcahtoa82]

Another commenter [0] highlighted the answer to this.

Crash testing isn't just crashing into barriers, it also tests automatic emergency braking. For crash testing, they could give a software build that's more sensitive to seeing pedestrians and bicycles, but not use that build in customer cars because it's prone to false positives.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32837954

[giraffe_lady]

Things like that, yes. It probably takes a certain amount of domain expertise to know exactly what, and how.

But it seems fairly reasonable to guess that certain settings that are normally generalized to work appropriately well across a wide range of crashes can also be optimized for certain cases if you know in advance which cases are being tested for. We see this sort of optimization-to-the-test being possible in most other domains so why not this one as well.

[defterGoose]

> We see this sort of optimization-to-the-test being possible in most other domains so why not this one as well.

Because then you're doing junk science (and possibly active harm) in all domains in the name of improving economic metrics.