For a year Tesla has been releasing stats about the safety of Autopilot, by comparing the number of accidents per mile driven with Autopilot engaged with data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The first release of data was in 2018, with the Q3 earnings report. where it was stated that they registered one accident or crash-like event for every 5.4 million km (4.34 million miles) driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. That impressively compared with the NHTSA data of an automobile crash every 791,000km (492,000 miles). The stats over time have looked like this.
| Q3 2018 | Q4 2018 | Q1 2019 | Q2 2019 | Q3 2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla | 5,400,000 km | 4,680,000 km | 4,618,000 km | 5,262,000 km | 6,984,000 km |
| NHTSA | 791,000km | 701,000 km | 701,000 km | 801,000 km | 801,000 km |
As you can see, the most recent stats from Q3 2019 show a big improvement in the safety numbers, with one accident or crash-like event for nearly every 7,000,000km. This equates to a 1,500,000km increase from the previous record from Q3 2018, just one year ago.
It is no surprise the number is getting better Tesla, as the number of Tesla vehicles on the road has increased significantly, and the Autopilot neural net is learning from each and every kilometer driven while under Autopilot.
Despite what some mainstream media will want you to believe about the safety of Autopilot and that it is more dangerous than human pilot, the numbers say otherwise.
