Tesla has released its latest ‘Vehicle Safety Report’, which looks into different accident rates per mile of its vehicles on and off Autopilot.
The newest data shows a slight improvement.
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 Q3 2020:
Within the third quarter, we registered one accident for each 4.59 million miles driven by which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our lively safety features, we registered one accident for each 2.42 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our lively safety features, we registered one accident for each 1.79 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most up-to-date data shows that in america there may be an automobile crash every 479,000 miles.
Listed below are how all different metrics compare to the info from the prior quarter and the identical period last yr:
- Autopilot Engaged: it’s at one accident for each 4.59 million miles driven in Q3 2020. It went from one accident for each 4.53 million miles in Q2 2020 and from one accident for each 4.34 million miles in Q3 2019
- Autopilot disengaged but with lively safety features: it’s at one accident for each 2.42 million miles driven in Q3 2020. It went from one accident for each 2.27 million miles in Q2 2020 and from one accident for each 2.70 million miles in Q3 2019
- Autopilot disengaged and without lively safety features: it’s at one accident for each 1.79 million miles driven in Q3 2020. It went from one accident for each 1.56 million miles in Q2 2020 and from one accident for each 1.82 million miles in Q3 2019
Due to this fact, the info shows a slight reduction of accidents on Autopilot from Q2 to Q3 and a good improvement year-over-year.
As for Autopilot disengaged but with safety features powered by Autopilot, it improved quarter-to-quarter, but it surely went down year-over-year.
Electrek’s Take
As usual, please take into accout that the comparisons here aren’t perfect.
Since Autopilot is currently primarily used on highways where it’s easier to build up lots of mileage without accidents and non-Autopilot mileage is coming from city driving, where accidents are more likely, the 2 datasets can not likely be compared.
Nonetheless, it’s still useful to match the Autopilot mileage per accident over periods of time, like year-over-year. The information is much from perfect, but it surely’s the perfect we have now for now.
Tesla goes to wish so much more data in the event that they ever wish to persuade authorities to permit them to deploy their full self-driving system.
Now that the FSD beta is out, it’ll be interesting to see if and the way Tesla integrates the info into its safety report.