8 ms·

Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

32 points by redox99 4y ago

photoGrant 4y ago
> For example, more than 35% of all Autopilot crashes occur when the Tesla vehicle is rear-ended by another vehicle. Well, if you want to know why some people are rear ending a Tesla, it's because it's far more unpredictable than a human driver. https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... Also it seems to contradict itself on data collection. First; > In practice, this correlates to nearly any crash at about 12 mph (20 kph) or above, depending on the crash forces generated But then they've decided to ignore crashes that doesn't deploy an airbag or similar... > recent analysis led us to identify and implement upgrades to our data reporting. Specifically, we discovered reports of certain events where no airbag or other active restraint deployed [...] So now we're only counting major accidents?
- enslavedrobot 4y ago
  Given that per the NHTSA 29% of all accidents are rear end collisions, I don't think the 35% number is meaningful, given the small sample size. Also: Tesla has always been clear about their definition of "crash", it hasn't changed since they started reporting years ago.
  - photoGrant 4y ago
    > Also: Tesla has always been clear about their definition of "crash", it hasn't changed since they started reporting years ago. But it says specifically it does since Jan 2023 and they've retroactively adjusted their previous reporting...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Does the Tesla always activate its brake lights when slowing down? (I have an EV6, and I don't even know if brakes lights come on when I'm using regen as opposed to the brake pedal) When I'm driving and traffic is stopped ahead, I used to always brake not because I had to, but as an indication to the car behind me.
  - fortylove 4y ago
    Thanks for asking this. I've never thought of the implications of re-gen braking when slowing down!
    - yellow_postit 4y ago
      Searching around seems inconsistent across different brands/models/model years (eg Bolt behavior changed recently). As one pedal driving becomes more prevalent might be something in need of a standard. For Tesla Model Y: > If regenerative braking is aggressively slowing Model Y (such as when your foot is completely off the accelerator pedal at highway speeds), the brake lights turn on to alert others that you are slowing down. Source: Model Y manual: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/is_is/GUID-3DFFB071-C0F6-474D-8A45-17BE1A006365.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/is_is/GUID-3DFFB07...
    - tyingq 4y ago
      Might be a nice addition for other cars, for example, when you aggressively downshift and decelerate that way.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    According to this article [1], the brake lights do come on. But the article is from 2021, so who knows if that is still true (or if it was ever true for all Teslas, since they only tested one). 1: https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-turn-on-brake-lights#Case_in_Point_Tesla_Model_3 https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-t...
    - brianwawok 4y ago
- bagels 4y ago
  Autopilot does emergency braking for nonexistent obstacles. I'm sure it's contributing to rear end collision risk. I stopped using it for this reason.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    Every autonomous braking system has that problem, including the one in my 2020 Macan. They are dangerously-flaky hacks. As of 2025 they are mandated by law.
    - bagels 4y ago
      The rate for me was approximately 1 emergency brake maneuver per 6 miles of driving. I doubt any of them are as bad as the Tesla system.
    - cyrux004 4y ago
      Apparently not as common as Tesla. You should read about "phantom braking" issues on Tesla , especially after they removed the radar
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        Yeah, I can't even imagine what it would be like to implement a system like that without radar. Tesla's approach would make a good Most Interesting Man In the World meme. "I don't always tackle the hardest engineering problems in human history, such as self-driving cars. But when I do, I tie one hand behind my back, close one eye, and consume some alcohol or drugs first." One episode per 3000 miles is too many, and that's about what I was seeing before I disabled the feature.
        bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Are you referring to the "gentle slow down" behavior that Autopilot often does or the "slam on the brakes as hard as you can" behavior of Automatic Emergency Braking? I definitely see the former more than once per 3000 miles but it doesn't bother me. I've never seen the latter.
- killjoywashere 4y ago
  Keep in mind, you can reasonably assume many minor accidents don't get reported to the government database. But Tesla is afflicted by perfect (or near perfect) knowledge of every vehicle in the fleet. A line has to be drawn somewhere. 0.1 mph? 2 mph? 25 mph? Half that? Where would you draw the line to be comparable to the federal data?
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    Sure. But we're very much in the data gathering phase of autonomous/semi-autonomous/enhanced driver assist vehicles, so I have a hard time arguing that "we don't really need to report this incident (not accident) to a database".
- throwawayacc3 4y ago
  >Well, if you want to know why some people are rear ending a Tesla, it's because it's far more unpredictable than a human driver. How unpredictable is a solid 5 seconds of the Tesla signaling it's lane change then slowing down? I blame the asshole that was in the far left lane going way too fast and not slowing down (just letting off the accelerator when the Tesla signalled would have prevented the accident) when someone is trying to enter. Then they brake way too late. Everyone behind that first vehicle is also to blame for following too closely at too fast of a speed.
lokimedes 4y ago
Comparing Tesla to the US incident average is a neat way of ignoring that high-end electric vehicles are not driven by the US average driver, in average situations. The driver (or should we call them executives, in self-driving cars?) is likely to have much more to do with the statistics, that the car.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I wrote article [1] along these lines a few years ago. There are lots of non-comparables between Teslas and the US fleet average, although this has been getting less true over time (as Tesla released less expensive cars, and as its vehicles aged). 1: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exaggeraged-safety-claims-about-autopilot-and-cars https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exagge...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bdcravens 4y ago
  The reason for that difference should be evaluated then. Is it an income thing? Car cost thing? (compare stats to non-Teslas in the same group) Does Tesla's marketing create a false sense of confidence in the car's abilities? Does the UI distract? Numbers can lie, but in general, I think the data is out there to support or reject the "fake news" narrative.
- sidibe 4y ago
  It's not even comparing Tesla to US incident average, that would be an improvement. It's comparing Tesla in situations where people are comfortable activating Autopilot to US incident average. The absolute easiest miles for a luxury vehicle vs all miles for all cars.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Public policy in the town I grew up in was that intersections only got lights after a certain number of reported accidents had happened there. There was a particularly nasty intersection near the most popular bike shop that the bike club kept going to the city about but since nobody had died yet, they weren't going to put one in. People know which intersections are accident prone, well before the city does something about it. There are routes I don't take because there are others that are safer or easier to follow at all hours of the day instead of just outside of rush hour, or also when I'm tired/distracted. But there are also magnets that pull certain demographics to them. Like that bike shop, or the shitshow outside of CostCo where I live now.
advisedwang 4y ago
I was curious about what stats were used for the following: > By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2021) shows that in the United States there was an automobile crash approximately every 652,000 miles. The figures they are using for this are 4,954,323 vehicles in crashes (ie a single crash with 3 vehicles adds 3 to this total). This includes large trucks, motorcycles, buses, other, and unknown vehicle types, from the NHTSA data. and 3,228.8 billion miles from the FHWA data.
postmeta 4y ago
Is there similar data for other companies like BMW or Ford? Also just seeing improvement from Q3 2022 vs Q3 2021 is good, although small margin.
etchalon 4y ago
My main question is whether the miles equated are in fact equal. Autopilot is used far more often on the highway, I believe, than in residential areas – where I also believe crashes are more frequent. It'd be interesting to see the miles broken down by road type, speed, etc.
Imnimo 4y ago
I do believe that Teslas are quite safe despite the high-profile failures, but I'm very unconvinced by a stat that compares accidents per mile using autopilot to accidents per mile not using autopilot. Those are not comparable miles - people don't uniformly use autopilot across all driving conditions. Imagine you had a subsystem that did absolutely nothing, but people turned it on when driving on empty highways. It's accidents per mile number would look great!
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  This needs to be emphasized so much more. Short of "not driving", human drivers don't have the option of "well, this is less than optimal, I can't do well, so I won't try". FSD absolutely does. Disengages, or is not even engaged in the first place. I wonder Tesla's FSD safety / disengagement stats for December to February in Pittsburgh, for example.
  - gumby 4y ago
    > Short of "not driving", human drivers don't have the option of "well, this is less than optimal, I can't do well, so I won't try". They sure do, and will stop when things are too complex for them (e.g. bad weather).
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    Yes, how about a stat for, "accidents/incidents which were proceeded by AutoPilot disengagement within the past ~5 seconds."
    - chroma 4y ago
      That's what Tesla is counting. From the methodology section of the safety report: > To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed.
      - 4y ago
matrixlab 4y ago
It's interesting that there is so much variability in "Tesla vehicles not using Autopilot technology". I wonder if this is just the small sample size compared to the national data, or some other effect?
culi 4y ago
Given Tesla's now well-documented history of lying about their cars' safety,[0-6] it's kind of alarming to see, what's basically an ad directly from a brand, being posted to the front page of HN [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/07/federal-safety-regulators-scolded-elon-musk-over-misleading-statements-tesla-safety/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/07/federal... [1] https://www.autobison.com/2020/03/has-tesla-been-lying-about-its-safety-record/ https://www.autobison.com/2020/03/has-tesla-been-lying-about... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/data-shows-tesla-accounts-for-most-reported-driver-assist-crashes-but-officials-warn-report-lacks-context.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/data-shows-tesla-accounts-fo... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/tesla-autopilot-safety-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/tesla-autopilo... [4] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-27/tesla-stopped-reporting-autopilot-safety-statistics-online https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-27/tesla-stop... [5] https://phys.org/news/2018-05-fact-tesla-safety.html https://phys.org/news/2018-05-fact-tesla-safety.html [6] https://securityboulevard.com/2022/11/its-official-tesla-has-reduced-driver-safety/ https://securityboulevard.com/2022/11/its-official-tesla-has...
- femiagbabiaka 4y ago
  True, although it is indicative of some level of community sentiment and will certainly have a comment section full of rebuttals as your own. Good advantage of a mostly free speech platform.
- ajross 4y ago
  Almost as upsetting as it is to see a Gish gallop link list rise to the top of that topic. Needless to say not one of those corroborates "history of lying about their cars' safety", and you surely know that. But you'll challenge us all to figure it out on our own anyway? It's absolutely amazing that we have to go through this every time someone gets video of a Tesla event. There are millions of these cars on the road now, surely the fact that this happens only monthly sits as evidence against your position, no? Edit: FWIW: my money is on this story being quietly retracted at some point anyway. FSD doesn't behave like that. It just doesn't. Almost certainly the driver got confused, panicked, or otherwise overrode the automation and then blamed it when talking to police. The police report is almost silent on the subject: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23569059-9335-2022-02256-redacted https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23569059-9335-2022-0... This entire kerfuffle is based on this one sentence: "P-1 stated V-1 was in Full Self Driving mode at the time of the crash, I am unable to verify if V-1’s Full 24 Self-Driving Capability was active at the time of the crash."
sergiotapia 4y ago
I hope my son's first car is a Tesla. I hope I'm well off enough to support that purchase. I want him to be as safe as possible and have a cool ride :D
olliej 4y ago
This is absurdly, and at this point clearly intentionally, disingenuous. You would absolutely expect Autopilot/FSD to have fewer crashes than human-in-control crashes because AP/FSD isn't available in the conditions that result in more crashes: bad/variable roads, poor conditions, etc. Anything else would imply AP/FSD is absurdly dangerous as it would be getting higher crash rates in good conditions than human drivers in bad conditions. If AP/FSD were actually better and/or safer than human drivers you would expect Tesla to aggressively demonstrate that. Given that they are choosing not to compare crash rates by road condition it is reasonable to assume that the statistics do not support the claim. This is before we get into whether AP/FSD disconnecting moments before crashing counts as crashing under AP/FSD. I recall articles claiming that Tesla didn't include such crashes as being caused by AP/FSD, but I have no idea if that was ever confirmed. Certainly I know Tesla has gone out of its way to blame drivers for AP/FSD crashes, so my faith in any kind of honesty from Tesla in these matters is minimal.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
Tesla is discovering it's created a lightning rod for blame. Previously, accident culpability was diffuse across individual drivers in a way that motivating any group of individuals to action is inherently a _social_ problem, and one that is often dismissed as such. The development and deployment of a singular identifiable causal agent casts off that shield of diffuse social responsibility in a way that leaves Tesla vulnerable to intense scrutiny. It doesn't help that as Tesla's figurehead, the collective schadenfreude we gain from Musk's failures are converted into a cathartic group joy. Nevertheless, the dynamics of blame have changed because the terrain has changed. The closest analogy would be a human driver that drive all the miles autopilot drove in 2022 and was responsible for the same number of autopilot crashes in 2022. Presented outside the frame of this debate, I can't help but imagine we would want them off the road regardless of whether their miles per crash were less than the population on average.

32 points by redox99 4y ago

> For example, more than 35% of all Autopilot crashes occur when the Tesla vehicle is rear-ended by another vehicle. Well, if you want to know why some people are rear ending a Tesla, it's because it's far more unpredictable than a human driver. https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-autopilot/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... Also it seems to contradict itself on data collection. First; > In practice, this correlates to nearly any crash at about 12 mph (20 kph) or above, depending on the crash forces generated But then they've decided to ignore crashes that doesn't deploy an airbag or similar... > recent analysis led us to identify and implement upgrades to our data reporting. Specifically, we discovered reports of certain events where no airbag or other active restraint deployed [...] So now we're only counting major accidents?

enslavedrobot 4y ago
Given that per the NHTSA 29% of all accidents are rear end collisions, I don't think the 35% number is meaningful, given the small sample size. Also: Tesla has always been clear about their definition of "crash", it hasn't changed since they started reporting years ago.
- photoGrant 4y ago
  > Also: Tesla has always been clear about their definition of "crash", it hasn't changed since they started reporting years ago. But it says specifically it does since Jan 2023 and they've retroactively adjusted their previous reporting...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bdcravens 4y ago
Does the Tesla always activate its brake lights when slowing down? (I have an EV6, and I don't even know if brakes lights come on when I'm using regen as opposed to the brake pedal) When I'm driving and traffic is stopped ahead, I used to always brake not because I had to, but as an indication to the car behind me.
- fortylove 4y ago
  Thanks for asking this. I've never thought of the implications of re-gen braking when slowing down!
  - yellow_postit 4y ago
    Searching around seems inconsistent across different brands/models/model years (eg Bolt behavior changed recently). As one pedal driving becomes more prevalent might be something in need of a standard. For Tesla Model Y: > If regenerative braking is aggressively slowing Model Y (such as when your foot is completely off the accelerator pedal at highway speeds), the brake lights turn on to alert others that you are slowing down. Source: Model Y manual: https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/is_is/GUID-3DFFB071-C0F6-474D-8A45-17BE1A006365.html https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/is_is/GUID-3DFFB07...
  - tyingq 4y ago
    Might be a nice addition for other cars, for example, when you aggressively downshift and decelerate that way.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  According to this article [1], the brake lights do come on. But the article is from 2021, so who knows if that is still true (or if it was ever true for all Teslas, since they only tested one). 1: https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-turn-on-brake-lights#Case_in_Point_Tesla_Model_3 https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-t...
  - brianwawok 4y ago
bagels 4y ago
Autopilot does emergency braking for nonexistent obstacles. I'm sure it's contributing to rear end collision risk. I stopped using it for this reason.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Every autonomous braking system has that problem, including the one in my 2020 Macan. They are dangerously-flaky hacks. As of 2025 they are mandated by law.
  - bagels 4y ago
    The rate for me was approximately 1 emergency brake maneuver per 6 miles of driving. I doubt any of them are as bad as the Tesla system.
  - cyrux004 4y ago
    Apparently not as common as Tesla. You should read about "phantom braking" issues on Tesla , especially after they removed the radar
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      Yeah, I can't even imagine what it would be like to implement a system like that without radar. Tesla's approach would make a good Most Interesting Man In the World meme. "I don't always tackle the hardest engineering problems in human history, such as self-driving cars. But when I do, I tie one hand behind my back, close one eye, and consume some alcohol or drugs first." One episode per 3000 miles is too many, and that's about what I was seeing before I disabled the feature.
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Are you referring to the "gentle slow down" behavior that Autopilot often does or the "slam on the brakes as hard as you can" behavior of Automatic Emergency Braking? I definitely see the former more than once per 3000 miles but it doesn't bother me. I've never seen the latter.
killjoywashere 4y ago
Keep in mind, you can reasonably assume many minor accidents don't get reported to the government database. But Tesla is afflicted by perfect (or near perfect) knowledge of every vehicle in the fleet. A line has to be drawn somewhere. 0.1 mph? 2 mph? 25 mph? Half that? Where would you draw the line to be comparable to the federal data?
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  Sure. But we're very much in the data gathering phase of autonomous/semi-autonomous/enhanced driver assist vehicles, so I have a hard time arguing that "we don't really need to report this incident (not accident) to a database".
throwawayacc3 4y ago
>Well, if you want to know why some people are rear ending a Tesla, it's because it's far more unpredictable than a human driver. How unpredictable is a solid 5 seconds of the Tesla signaling it's lane change then slowing down? I blame the asshole that was in the far left lane going way too fast and not slowing down (just letting off the accelerator when the Tesla signalled would have prevented the accident) when someone is trying to enter. Then they brake way too late. Everyone behind that first vehicle is also to blame for following too closely at too fast of a speed.

lokimedes 4y ago

Comparing Tesla to the US incident average is a neat way of ignoring that high-end electric vehicles are not driven by the US average driver, in average situations. The driver (or should we call them executives, in self-driving cars?) is likely to have much more to do with the statistics, that the car.

gnicholas 4y ago
I wrote article [1] along these lines a few years ago. There are lots of non-comparables between Teslas and the US fleet average, although this has been getting less true over time (as Tesla released less expensive cars, and as its vehicles aged). 1: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exaggeraged-safety-claims-about-autopilot-and-cars https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-tesla-and-elon-musk-exagge...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bdcravens 4y ago
The reason for that difference should be evaluated then. Is it an income thing? Car cost thing? (compare stats to non-Teslas in the same group) Does Tesla's marketing create a false sense of confidence in the car's abilities? Does the UI distract? Numbers can lie, but in general, I think the data is out there to support or reject the "fake news" narrative.
sidibe 4y ago
It's not even comparing Tesla to US incident average, that would be an improvement. It's comparing Tesla in situations where people are comfortable activating Autopilot to US incident average. The absolute easiest miles for a luxury vehicle vs all miles for all cars.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Public policy in the town I grew up in was that intersections only got lights after a certain number of reported accidents had happened there. There was a particularly nasty intersection near the most popular bike shop that the bike club kept going to the city about but since nobody had died yet, they weren't going to put one in. People know which intersections are accident prone, well before the city does something about it. There are routes I don't take because there are others that are safer or easier to follow at all hours of the day instead of just outside of rush hour, or also when I'm tired/distracted. But there are also magnets that pull certain demographics to them. Like that bike shop, or the shitshow outside of CostCo where I live now.

advisedwang 4y ago

I was curious about what stats were used for the following: > By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2021) shows that in the United States there was an automobile crash approximately every 652,000 miles. The figures they are using for this are 4,954,323 vehicles in crashes (ie a single crash with 3 vehicles adds 3 to this total). This includes large trucks, motorcycles, buses, other, and unknown vehicle types, from the NHTSA data. and 3,228.8 billion miles from the FHWA data.

postmeta 4y ago

Is there similar data for other companies like BMW or Ford? Also just seeing improvement from Q3 2022 vs Q3 2021 is good, although small margin.

etchalon 4y ago

My main question is whether the miles equated are in fact equal. Autopilot is used far more often on the highway, I believe, than in residential areas – where I also believe crashes are more frequent. It'd be interesting to see the miles broken down by road type, speed, etc.

Imnimo 4y ago

I do believe that Teslas are quite safe despite the high-profile failures, but I'm very unconvinced by a stat that compares accidents per mile using autopilot to accidents per mile not using autopilot. Those are not comparable miles - people don't uniformly use autopilot across all driving conditions. Imagine you had a subsystem that did absolutely nothing, but people turned it on when driving on empty highways. It's accidents per mile number would look great!

FireBeyond 4y ago
This needs to be emphasized so much more. Short of "not driving", human drivers don't have the option of "well, this is less than optimal, I can't do well, so I won't try". FSD absolutely does. Disengages, or is not even engaged in the first place. I wonder Tesla's FSD safety / disengagement stats for December to February in Pittsburgh, for example.
- gumby 4y ago
  > Short of "not driving", human drivers don't have the option of "well, this is less than optimal, I can't do well, so I won't try". They sure do, and will stop when things are too complex for them (e.g. bad weather).
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Yes, how about a stat for, "accidents/incidents which were proceeded by AutoPilot disengagement within the past ~5 seconds."
  - chroma 4y ago
    That's what Tesla is counting. From the methodology section of the safety report: > To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed.
    - 4y ago

matrixlab 4y ago

It's interesting that there is so much variability in "Tesla vehicles not using Autopilot technology". I wonder if this is just the small sample size compared to the national data, or some other effect?

culi 4y ago

Given Tesla's now well-documented history of lying about their cars' safety,[0-6] it's kind of alarming to see, what's basically an ad directly from a brand, being posted to the front page of HN [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/07/federal-safety-regulators-scolded-elon-musk-over-misleading-statements-tesla-safety/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/07/federal... [1] https://www.autobison.com/2020/03/has-tesla-been-lying-about-its-safety-record/ https://www.autobison.com/2020/03/has-tesla-been-lying-about... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/data-shows-tesla-accounts-for-most-reported-driver-assist-crashes-but-officials-warn-report-lacks-context.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/data-shows-tesla-accounts-fo... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/tesla-autopilot-safety-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/tesla-autopilo... [4] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-27/tesla-stopped-reporting-autopilot-safety-statistics-online https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-27/tesla-stop... [5] https://phys.org/news/2018-05-fact-tesla-safety.html https://phys.org/news/2018-05-fact-tesla-safety.html [6] https://securityboulevard.com/2022/11/its-official-tesla-has-reduced-driver-safety/ https://securityboulevard.com/2022/11/its-official-tesla-has...

femiagbabiaka 4y ago
True, although it is indicative of some level of community sentiment and will certainly have a comment section full of rebuttals as your own. Good advantage of a mostly free speech platform.
ajross 4y ago
Almost as upsetting as it is to see a Gish gallop link list rise to the top of that topic. Needless to say not one of those corroborates "history of lying about their cars' safety", and you surely know that. But you'll challenge us all to figure it out on our own anyway? It's absolutely amazing that we have to go through this every time someone gets video of a Tesla event. There are millions of these cars on the road now, surely the fact that this happens only monthly sits as evidence against your position, no? Edit: FWIW: my money is on this story being quietly retracted at some point anyway. FSD doesn't behave like that. It just doesn't. Almost certainly the driver got confused, panicked, or otherwise overrode the automation and then blamed it when talking to police. The police report is almost silent on the subject: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23569059-9335-2022-02256-redacted https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23569059-9335-2022-0... This entire kerfuffle is based on this one sentence: "P-1 stated V-1 was in Full Self Driving mode at the time of the crash, I am unable to verify if V-1’s Full 24 Self-Driving Capability was active at the time of the crash."

sergiotapia 4y ago

I hope my son's first car is a Tesla. I hope I'm well off enough to support that purchase. I want him to be as safe as possible and have a cool ride :D

olliej 4y ago

This is absurdly, and at this point clearly intentionally, disingenuous. You would absolutely expect Autopilot/FSD to have fewer crashes than human-in-control crashes because AP/FSD isn't available in the conditions that result in more crashes: bad/variable roads, poor conditions, etc. Anything else would imply AP/FSD is absurdly dangerous as it would be getting higher crash rates in good conditions than human drivers in bad conditions. If AP/FSD were actually better and/or safer than human drivers you would expect Tesla to aggressively demonstrate that. Given that they are choosing not to compare crash rates by road condition it is reasonable to assume that the statistics do not support the claim. This is before we get into whether AP/FSD disconnecting moments before crashing counts as crashing under AP/FSD. I recall articles claiming that Tesla didn't include such crashes as being caused by AP/FSD, but I have no idea if that was ever confirmed. Certainly I know Tesla has gone out of its way to blame drivers for AP/FSD crashes, so my faith in any kind of honesty from Tesla in these matters is minimal.

kelseyfrog 4y ago

Tesla is discovering it's created a lightning rod for blame. Previously, accident culpability was diffuse across individual drivers in a way that motivating any group of individuals to action is inherently a _social_ problem, and one that is often dismissed as such. The development and deployment of a singular identifiable causal agent casts off that shield of diffuse social responsibility in a way that leaves Tesla vulnerable to intense scrutiny. It doesn't help that as Tesla's figurehead, the collective schadenfreude we gain from Musk's failures are converted into a cathartic group joy. Nevertheless, the dynamics of blame have changed because the terrain has changed. The closest analogy would be a human driver that drive all the miles autopilot drove in 2022 and was responsible for the same number of autopilot crashes in 2022. Presented outside the frame of this debate, I can't help but imagine we would want them off the road regardless of whether their miles per crash were less than the population on average.