Tesla released their quarterly safety report today, improving on numbers from the previous quarter and once again showing Autopilot is much safer than human drivers.
According to the latest figures from the automaker, a Tesla vehicle with Autopilot engaged is involved in one accident every 4.19 million miles (6.74 million km). That is an improvement from Q4 2020 where one accident every 3.45 million miles (5.55 million km) was registered.
With the improved statistics, Tesla vehicles with Autopilot engaged are nearly 10X safer than when a human is in control of the vehicle. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says there is one accident every 484,000 miles (778,000km) driven in the US.
Other figures provided by the automaker:
- Without Autopilot but with active safety features: 1 accident every 2.05 million miles (3.29 million kms)
- Without Autopilot and without active safety features: 1 accident every 978,000 miles (1.57 million kms)
Perhaps the most interesting figure released today are the ones above. It shows a Tesla with only “Passive Autopilot”, or active safety features enabled, is orders of magnitude safer than the average car and driver, something which CEO Elon Musk commented after the release of the report this afternoon.
Essentially, passive Autopilot (car intervenes only when crash probability is high) cuts crashes in half.
Active Autopilot (car is driving itself) cuts crashes in half again.
Doesn’t mean there are no crashes, but, on balance, Autopilot is unequivocally safer.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2021
