① Tesla released the safety data report for its autonomous driving assistance system Autopilot on Wednesday (May 22); ② The data showed that the frequency of accidents caused by drivers after using Autopilot reached the lowest level in history; ③ Tesla claims that its Autopilot technology brings a safer driving experience, but analysts say that such data is not comprehensive and cannot be overrelied upon.
Financial Services Association, May 23 (Editor Zhou Ziyi) Tesla released the latest safety data report for its autonomous driving assistance system Autopilot on Wednesday (May 22). The report, which was released again a year later, shows that compared to vehicles driven by hand, the collision rate of vehicles using Autopilot is significantly lower.
According to the data, in the first quarter of 2024, the frequency of accidents caused by drivers after using Autopilot was 1 car accident for every 7.63 million miles (about 12.28 million km), reaching the lowest level in history; while drivers who did not use Autopilot, an average of 1 car accident occurred for every 955,000 miles (about 1.54 million km).
According to recent data provided by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), starting in 2022, a car accident will occur for every 670,000 miles (about 1.08 million km) traveled in the US.
Through this report, Tesla claims that its Autopilot technology brings a safer driving experience, and even without Autopilot, its vehicles collide far less frequently than ordinary American cars.
Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that Tesla did not publish relevant data after the fourth quarter of 2022, and did not update the data until more than a year later, completely skipping the whole of 2023. Although Tesla did not provide an explanation for this, analysts were able to see a clue from the latest report.
The data for the first quarter of 2023 in this report shows that compared with the same period of the previous year, the frequency of accidents has increased (that is, the number of mileage between accidents has decreased), which may explain why Tesla stopped releasing data — good news rather than bad news.
Electric vehicle analyst Sawyer Merritt commented on the latest quarterly data on X, saying that this is a new safety record, 16% higher than the best performance in the past. Musk replied underneath, “Yes.”
However, some critics point out that data comparisons are always limited because accidents on urban roads and undivided roads are often more common than on highways, and autopilots are often used more often on highways.