Zhitong Finance learned that after more than a year of interruption, Tesla (TSLA.US) finally decided to release its autonomous driving Autopilot safety data report. The report shows that in the first quarter of this year, when Autopilot was turned on, an average of 1 accident occurred every 7.63 million miles (about 12.2793 million kilometers); while car owners who did not use Autopilot had an average of 1 accident every 955,000 miles driven. In contrast, according to the latest data provided by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the average US car owner will have a traffic accident for every 670,000 miles traveled.

Tesla has always been used to publishing quarterly “vehicle safety reports” to track accidents that occur when its vehicles use or not use Autopilot by comparing driving mileage under different conditions with industry averages. The automaker used the report to claim that its autopilot technology led to a safer driving experience, and even without an autopilot, its vehicles had fewer accidents than the average American car.

This data is always criticized for being flawed. But this is the only data Tesla is willing to release about the autopilot, so it still helps track progress. However, Tesla stopped reporting data after the fourth quarter of 2022, without explaining why.

Notably, the data for the first quarter of 2023 shown in this report has declined compared to the security data for the same period last year, which may explain why Tesla failed to provide this data last year. The automaker didn't release data until the first quarter of 2024, showing significant improvements to the autopilot.