The main interesting charts they're showing are about disengagement rates, but this is a pretty sketchy comparison, both between manufacturers and over time with Tesla's FSD as well.
"Disengagement" is going to happen for different reasons for all of these different cases. There's the axis that runs from merely inconveniencing others (e.g. "I disengaged because I was holding up traffic by being embarrassingly slow through a turn at an intersection") to the ones where a serious accident was averted (e.g. "I hit the brakes moments before the car caused a head-on collision). There's the scenario differences that feed into thresholds for deciding to disengage: professional safety drivers on planned tasks that have been given a sort of "rules of disengagement", vs everyday normal humans getting groceries and intervening whenever they feel like it for whatever reason. There's the fact that many competitors are operating in tight geofenced, HD-mapped areas, while FSD is operating real-world all over the country.
I agree that Tesla's lack of transparency is troubling here, but this article seems to be trying to pressure them to increase it by taking a dishonest tack and stack all the unknowns against them in the worst possible way.
They have published basic accident statistics (in the past), and those have generally shown their automation to be a net win. In their own published stats from Q4 21 (latest available on https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport ), the comparison they make is this:
* NHSTA data says the whole US averaged one accident per 484K miles.
* All Tesla cars on the road averaged one accident per 1.59M miles (so, ~3.5x better? This could also be caused by the profile of Tesla drivers rather than any real car safety difference - income, where they live, etc)
* Tesla cars with some form of Autopilot engaged averaged one accident per 4.31M miles driven (~2.7x better than non-Autopilot Tesla data, and overall ~10x better than the national average).
Is there a reason there aren't stats for 2022 on the VehicleSafetyReport link?
Is that a typical delay (e.g. were Q1, Q2, Q3 21 reports not available in December of 2021), or have they stopped or suspending publishing the reports?
I'm just not familiar enough with the site to know what is normal.
> Tesla cars with some form of Autopilot engaged averaged one accident per 4.31M miles driven (~2.7x better than non-Autopilot Tesla data, and overall ~10x better than the national average).
Do you know if "accident" encompasses all accidents, or is there a threshold level for severity? I'd be curious if the same patterns hold for "serious accidents" defined as someone (in any vehicle in the accident) being seriously injured or killed.
"Disengagement" is going to happen for different reasons for all of these different cases. There's the axis that runs from merely inconveniencing others (e.g. "I disengaged because I was holding up traffic by being embarrassingly slow through a turn at an intersection") to the ones where a serious accident was averted (e.g. "I hit the brakes moments before the car caused a head-on collision). There's the scenario differences that feed into thresholds for deciding to disengage: professional safety drivers on planned tasks that have been given a sort of "rules of disengagement", vs everyday normal humans getting groceries and intervening whenever they feel like it for whatever reason. There's the fact that many competitors are operating in tight geofenced, HD-mapped areas, while FSD is operating real-world all over the country.
I agree that Tesla's lack of transparency is troubling here, but this article seems to be trying to pressure them to increase it by taking a dishonest tack and stack all the unknowns against them in the worst possible way.
They have published basic accident statistics (in the past), and those have generally shown their automation to be a net win. In their own published stats from Q4 21 (latest available on https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport ), the comparison they make is this:
* NHSTA data says the whole US averaged one accident per 484K miles.
* All Tesla cars on the road averaged one accident per 1.59M miles (so, ~3.5x better? This could also be caused by the profile of Tesla drivers rather than any real car safety difference - income, where they live, etc)
* Tesla cars with some form of Autopilot engaged averaged one accident per 4.31M miles driven (~2.7x better than non-Autopilot Tesla data, and overall ~10x better than the national average).