Tesla released its latest safety data report for its automated driving assistance system, Autopilot, on Wednesday, May 22. The report, published after a year-long gap, shows that vehicles using Autopilot have significantly lower collision rates compared to manually driven vehicles.
The data reveals that in the first quarter of 2024, the accident frequency for drivers using Autopilot was one crash per 7.63 million miles driven, reaching a historic low; whereas drivers not using Autopilot experienced an average of one crash per 0.955 million miles driven.
According to recent data provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), starting from 2022, approximately one accident occurs for every 670,000 miles driven in the United States.
Tesla claims that its Autopilot technology provides a safer driving experience, with its vehicles having a much lower collision rate compared to regular American cars even without Autopilot.
It is worth noting that Tesla did not release any relevant data after the fourth quarter of 2022 until over a year later when they finally updated their data, completely skipping the entire year of 2023. While Tesla did not provide an explanation for this, analysts could glean some insights from the latest report.
The data for the first quarter of 2023 in this report shows an increase in accident frequency compared to the same period the previous year (meaning fewer miles between accidents), which may explain why Tesla halted data releases – focusing on the positives and not the negatives.
Electric vehicle analyst Sawyer Merritt commented on the latest quarterly data on X, stating that it sets a new safety record, improving by 16% compared to the previous best performance. Musk replied below, "Yes."
However, critics point out that the data comparison is limited because accidents on urban roads and undivided roads are often more common than on highways, where autonomous driving systems are more frequently used.
