
Tesla Autopilot Accidents: 1 out of 4,5M Miles; US Average: 1 out of 479,000 - elorant
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/08/01/tesla-autopilot-accidents-1-out-of-4530000-miles-us-average-1-out-of-479000-miles/
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mmmBacon
Not sure that this is an apples to apples comparison. The US average includes
many driving scenarios that Tesla’s autopilot cannot navigate.

~52% of accidents happen within 5 miles of home. At least where I live,
Tesla’s autopilot couldn’t navigate the 5 miles around my house on city
streets.

A better comparison may be to compare accident rates for same/similar driving
scenarios as the Tesla autopilot. While we all know that humans are bad
drivers, perhaps it would would be better to compare accident rates for
freeway driving.

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Retric
I suspect that number 52% has a lot to do with how many miles are driven
within a 5 mile radius the home. A 5 mile radius is ~78.54 square miles where
Manhattan for example is only 33.58 sq mi.

~~~
casefields
Not only that, but you're at your most tired as well. Early morning and late
at night after a long day. Driving tired is like driving drunk.

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asplake
What’s the average accident rate in the kind of conditions in which autopilot
is used?

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nahumfarchi
Furthermore, how do the severity of the accidents compare?

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Valgrim
Furthermore, how many times an accident was averted by a driver taking control
of the vehicle at the last moment?

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smnrchrds
Furthermore, how many times Autopilot fucked up so much that the accident
could not be avoided when the driver took control, but since the driver had
disengaged Autopilot at the last second, it is technically no longer an
"Autopilot Accident"?

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glofish
The study needs to stratify the results by the typical driver that buys a
Tesla and conditions/situations when Teslas are driven.

Already, using their numbers, just having a Tesla with no safety features
enabled drops the accidents rate to 1 in 1.4 million.

Is it hard to believe that much fewer Teslas are used to drive home at 2 am,
with five distracting passangers, after a night of partying?

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addicted
Headline rewritten: Accidents are less common in situations where accidents
are less common.

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senojretep356
It's an interesting comparison but I'd also like to see how safety systems in
other cars compare - i.e. Subaru Eyesight system. Anyway less accidents is
always good news.

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anonuser123456
If the rate generalizes, one could imagine Tesla being able to offer their
insurance rate at 1/10th the price of comparable vehicles.

That would make Tesla ownership that much more appealing from the TCO
perspective.

~~~
graton
Insurance also covers your car being stolen, vandalized, and other things
unrelated to being in an accident.

~~~
bradlys
Only if you have comprehensive insurance.

I know that well because my car was stolen and I only had liability. Still
came out ahead though - comprehensive on that car was horrendously expensive.

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olliej
Is this another selective comparisons article?

Autopilot is primarily a highway tool, but the vast vast majority of accidents
happen on normal streets, and is generally unavailable in many of the cases
where accidents are common.

A comparison of crash rates is _only_ relevant when comparing similarly
situated crashes. So what is the average American crash rate on highways in
clear weather, without construction, etc? I suspect that crash rate is far
better than at night, during a blizzard, on an ordinary poorly lit suburban
road. Yet AP wouldn't run then.

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vannevar
The article acknowledges what the title does not:

"First of all, Autopilot is more commonly used on longer freeway trips than in
city driving, and accidents are much more common in urban driving than on the
freeway, especially per mile. Additionally, in general, Autopilot would be
engaged in safer driving situations in which an accident is less likely in the
first place.

Lastly, the figure for the US average is based on annual data, and accidents
are more common in winter. (Naturally, Tesla’s Q2 data doesn’t cover the
winter. Although, its record-breaking result in Q1 does.)"

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pengaru
In other news, roads without intersections have fewer accidents.

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newen
Assuming the US average includes drunk drivers, sleepy drivers, inexperienced
drivers, speeding drivers, etc, etc. and under hugely varying environmental
conditions.

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Traster
I'll just add this to the long list of reasons I won't buy a Tesla. Don't put
out misleading statistics about safety. It's unforgivable.

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ID1452319
For me, these are the two most interesting statistics:

1 accident every 1.56 million miles without Autopilot and without active
safety features

1 accident every 479,000 miles — US average

Does this mean Tesla drivers are three times "better" than the US average?

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ac29
No, it just means Tesla drivers are less likely to drive on the most dangerous
types of roads, such as rural highways.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
I know that two lane highways can be dangerous, but are those really among the
most dangerous?

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heavenlyblue
However Tesla was prohibited from marketing it as a self-driving mechanism. So
they can’t be directly compared.

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Tepix
I wonder what the numbers are for comparable vehicles with comparable drivers
in comparable situations.

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m463
I'm always surprised at the backlash against this stuff.

Is it the boldness of the claims or the name they gave it?

Because autopilot is really quite nice. It helps.

I wonder if people complained about antilock brakes or cruise control when
they first came out? Anti-lock brakes don't work well on snow. Cruise control
has to be monitored. But they both are helpful and I have paid to have them on
my vehicle.

~~~
nojito
Because you can only use it during prime driving conditions and yet people
compare it to overall incidents when driving.

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filoleg
I dont know what you mean by “prime driving conditions”, but it seems to work
great both in sunny clear weather and in severe rain and thunderstorm, as well
as with varying levels of traffic (from none to heavy).

I have been using it for almost a year on my daily commute to work (~13 miles
one way), and only once it didn’t let me engage autopilot due to severe
weather (but it was so bad, even i couldnt see much, so i had to pull over at
the nearest exit and wait until weather conditions cleared up; and no, i wasnt
going to let autopilot drive in such poor conditions, i just wanted to check
if it would let me engage it). Every other time, even in thunderstorms and
rain, it worked flawlessly (and we get plenty of rainy days here in PNW,
though mostly not waterfall-tier of rain like you would get on east coast).

I can imagine, it would probably not work well with significant snow on the
roads, but i didnt get a chance or reason to test it, because when it snows
enough here to be an issue, everything pretty much gets closed.

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olliej
prime driving conditions means: well marked freeways.

Accidents primarily happen in areas like suburban and city streets with
pedestrians, effectively randomized lighting and road surfaces, and random mix
of traffic lights, stops sign, and poor road markings.

The closer you get to the latter the less likely AP is to engage, and also the
higher likelihood of a crash for any vehicle. Effectively AP is ensuring that
it can never been operating in the situations that produce the bulk of the
crash rate statistics, so any claims of relative safety are kind of
meaningless.

~~~
perl4ever
>Accidents primarily happen in areas like suburban and city streets

I was just taking a defensive driving course for the insurance discount, and I
think it said the vast majority of (lethal, major) accidents are on two lane
rural highways. Because in the US they are often posted at 55 mph, and have
uncontrolled intersections, unpredictable visibility, no separation between
oncoming traffic, and so on. But I assume you also wouldn't want to use
autopilot there either.

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ergocoder
I always wonder if they can slice the data where they compare with decent
human driver.

I drove for 15 years and never have a single accident. All of my friends never
have major accidents (e.g. breaking bones).

Sure, we are privileged. We don't drink and drive. We aren't deprived of sleep
and overworked and etc. We never have to go out when the road condition is
bad. We don't really drive over a speed limit.

I'm worried that this "US average" stats is skewed by some bad drivers.

