Beginning in the third quarter of 2018, Tesla has released a ‘Vehicle Safety Report‘ every quarter outlining the number of crashes that have occurred where Tesla vehicles were involved with Autopilot engaged.
In Q3 2019, Tesla reported one accident or crash-like event for nearly every 7,000,000km, making it 9x safer than when a human is driving the vehicle.
The latest report shows an increase in the number of accident or crash-like events when Autopilot is engaged, with one happening every 4,940,000km. That compares with the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which shows a crash every 770,800km in the US. While the number has increased from the previous quarter, Autopilot is still 6.5x safer than humanpilot.
Looking back at the historical numbers, Q4 and Q1 appear to be the ‘worst’ quarters for the number of accidents or crash like events for Tesla. This can likely be attributed to the winter weather conditions across most of Tesla’s major markets, including Canada.
The numbers are still the better than Q4 2018 and Q1 2019, which each registered one accident or crash like event every 4,680,000km and 4,618,000km respectively.
| Q3 2018 | Q4 2018 | Q1 2019 | Q2 2019 | Q3 2019 | Q4 2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 5,400,000 km | 4,680,000 km | 4,618,000 km | 5,262,000 km | 6,984,000 km | 4,940,000km |
| NHTSA | 791,000km | 701,000 km | 701,000 km | 801,000 km | 801,000 km | 770,800km |
Here is the full release from Tesla:
In the 4th quarter, we registered one accident for every 3.07 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.10 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 1.64 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 479,000 miles.
