Tesla recently released its vehicle safety report for the full year 2023, disclosing the number of accident registrations per million miles when using and not using the Autopilot automatic assisted driving system, and comparing it with the U.S. average. The data gives us a look at how self-driving technology can improve vehicle safety, but there are limitations because Tesla's statistical methodology does not distinguish between the causes of accidents, even though the company says more than 35% of self-driving accidents are caused by Tesla vehicles being rear-ended by other vehicles.
Data shows that from the first to the fourth quarter of 2023, when using the Autopilot autonomous driving system in 2023, an accident will occur every 5.18 million miles to 6.18 million miles. Compared with the same period in 2022, it fell by 21% in the first quarter, rose by 21% in the second quarter, fell by 6% in the third quarter, and rose by 11% in the fourth quarter. In other words, we cannot assert that Autopilot provides clear, consistent, and significant improvements in safety.
However, the accident rate of Tesla vehicles is significantly higher when autonomous driving technology is not used. Data shows that if Autopilot is not turned on, an accident will occur every 1 million to 1.52 million miles driven. The accident rate is much higher than when it is turned on, and this situation will become more and more serious compared to 2022.
Judging from the safety report released by Tesla, it seems that the accident rate has dropped significantly after Autopilot is turned on, and it is much better than the U.S. average of one accident per 670,000 miles in 2022. However, it should be noted that there are still many old cars in the United States that are not equipped with any assisted driving. Their existence may have lowered this value. Therefore, Tesla officials are not very convincing by comparing Teslas equipped with Autopilot with the average.