Tesla has started releasing its quarterly Autopilot safety reports after pausing for a year. The automaker claims some improvements.
Since 2018, Tesla has attempted to establish a benchmark for its Autopilot safety improvement by releasing a quarterly report that compares the number of miles per accident with Autopilot versus without Autopilot.
Data has always been limited and has been criticized for not taking into account that accidents are more common on city roads and undivided roads than on motorways, where autopilot is most often used.
However, it was still helpful to compare it to itself over time and see if there were any improvements, and sometimes there were some incremental improvements.
Tesla suddenly stopped publishing these earnings reports in 2022 without any explanation.
Now the automaker has decided to ramp it up again, releasing reports for all quarters through Q3 2022.
Tesla wrote for the latest data:
In Q3, we recorded one accident per 6.26 million miles driven where drivers were using Autopilot technology. For drivers not using Autopilot technology, we recorded one accident per 2.71 million miles driven. In comparison, the latest available data from NHTSA and FHWA (as of 2021) shows that there was an automobile accident approximately every 652,000 miles in the United States.
That compares to one accident per 4.35 million miles driven with Autopilot technology in the fourth quarter of 2021 — the last time Tesla released the data regularly.
Tesla was also kind enough to plot the data on a chart this time for better visualization:
As you can see, it’s up and down, but that’s partly seasonal. In winter there are notoriously more accidents due to road conditions and because it gets dark earlier.
Since Tesla stopped collecting data, the automaker has also significantly expanded its Full Self-Driving Beta program, which actually allows for the use of more Autopilot technology on city streets.
However, it’s unclear whether Tesla is including this data in this report.
Electrek’s take
I know. It’s a very limited dataset and I also wish Tesla was more transparent, but it’s the best we have right now and it shows some improvement.
We have to work with that now.
As I reported recently, I really hope that Tesla will release more data specifically about its FSD beta program so we can start to see some solid numbers that pave a way for Tesla to deliver on its self-driving promise.
The company’s reboot to publish these reports could be a step in that direction. We will see.
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