Tesla cars are popular and safe, too. According to the company’s Vehicle Safety Report, Autopilot users drove more than 7.5 million miles before being involved in an accident, despite a spat of court cases involving the technology.
Tesla paused publishing its Vehicle Safety Report but has recently resumed. Its data showed that drivers and their passengers have pretty good odds of avoiding accidents with or without Autopilot. As usual, the miles driven per accident in both scenarios is significantly higher in Tesla cars than in the rest of the industry in the US.
The last time Tesla reported in the fourth quarter of 2022, there was an accident per 4.85 million miles driven with Autopilot engaged. However, the numbers have improved significantly since then. In the first quarter of 2024, Tesla logged a crash every 7.63 million miles on Autopilot.
Compared to the US average of an accident every 670,000 miles, Tesla’s Autopilot is 11 times safer. It is also easy to see how fast Tesla revamped Autopilot as it took 5.18 million miles to record an accident with Autopilot in the same quarter last year.
The report concludes, “We are proud of Autopilot’s performance and its impact on reducing traffic collisions. The benefit and promise of Autopilot is clear from the Vehicle Safety Report data that we have been sharing for 4 years.”
Courtesy of Tesla
It is interesting to note that in about 35 percent of all reported crashes involving Autopilot, the car was rear-ended by another vehicle. However, Tesla does not differentiate so that “the statistics we share unquestionably show the benefits of Autopilot.”
As to why there is a significant disparity in the miles between crashes, Tesla says seasonality can affect crash rates between quarters due to factors, including reduced daylight and inclement or wintry weather. The best data comparison is between a quarter to the same quarter in prior years.
Tesla still ruled the industry in passenger safety without Autopilot, as it took 955,000 miles for an accident to occur without the driver assist tech activated. Altogether, Tesla has collected data from over 9 billion miles of Autopilot navigation globally.
In the report, Tesla boasted the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y were among the safest vehicles based on the probability of injury tested by the federal New Car Assessment Program. The company put this down to the “rigid, fortified structure of the battery pack that is mounted to the car’s floor, which provides a vehicle with exceptional strength, large crumple zones, and a uniquely low center of gravity.”
Tesla also said its battery packs are rarely seriously damaged in accidents. They also are able to isolate fires to select parts of the packs, thanks to the state-of-the-art design. They also direct the heat away from the cabin, protecting both the vehicle and the passengers.
Between 2012 and 2022, one Tesla vehicle was involved in a fire event after every 130 miles driven. This bested the average for the US, which was one for every 18 million miles, according to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) and the US Department of Transport. The figures for Tesla were even better as it involved every reported case of fire, including those due to wildfire, arson, and other causes indirectly related to the car, whereas, the data from the NPFA only accounted for when the automobile was the source of the fire.
Tesla’s premium safety features go way back. The EV maker made active safety standard on all its products manufactured after September 2014, which provided an extra safety layer for each car.
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