Tesla claims that a driver is “7x less more likely to be involved in an accident” with Autopilot enabled.
The info will not be that clear, nevertheless it shows improvements in a brand new Autopilot safety report from Tesla.
Tesla Autopilot safety report
Since 2018, Tesla has been attempting to create a benchmark for its improvement in Autopilot safety by releasing a quarterly report that compares the variety of miles per accident on Autopilot versus off Autopilot.
Today, Tesla released its report for Q4 2020:
Within the 4th quarter, we registered one accident for each 3.45 million miles driven through which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our lively safety features, we registered one accident for each 2.05 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our lively safety features, we registered one accident for each 1.27 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most up-to-date data shows that in the US there’s an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
The perfect comparison point is against the identical metric over the identical period last 12 months to account for the weather and seasonal conditions:
- Autopilot Engaged: It’s at one accident for each 3.45 million miles driven in Q4 2020, which is an improvement from every 3.07 million miles driven in Q4 2019.
- Autopilot disengaged but with lively safety features: It’s at one accident for each 2.05 million miles driven in Q4 2020, which is definitely down from every 2.10 million miles driven in Q4 2019.
- Autopilot disengaged and without lively safety features: It’s at one accident for each 1.27 million miles driven in Q4 2020, which is down from every 1.64 million miles driven in Q4 2019.
Due to this fact, it shows an overall improvement with Autopilot lively, but the info also shows worse performance with the protection features only.
Tesla claims Autopilot 7x less more likely to be involved in a crash
When Tesla shared the brand new report today, the automaker interpreted the info as being “7x less more likely to be involved in an accident” with Autopilot enabled:
Tesla appears to come back to that number by comparing miles driven through which drivers had Autopilot engaged to overall miles driven between crashes within the US.
That’s a flawed approach to have a look at the info since Autopilot is currently primarily used on highways where it’s easier to build up plenty of mileage without accidents, and non-Autopilot mileage is coming from city driving, where accidents are more likely, so the 2 datasets can probably not be compared.
Overall, NHTSA average combines each city and highway driving, and with every type of passenger vehicles.
Electrek’s Take
Having driven with Autopilot for 1000’s of miles, there’s little doubt in my mind that it’s safer than without.
But I don’t think we’re at a degree where we might be throwing around these numbers just yet.
Tesla goes to wish loads more data and present it in a more accurate way in the event that they ever need to persuade authorities to permit them to deploy their full self-driving system.
Nonetheless, I feel comparing the protection report is a great start, and it is beneficial compared to the identical per period within the previous 12 months.