Midwestern Hedgi writes on Medium analyzing Tesla driver fatality rates against comparable luxury vehicles.
HN commenters cite its 2018 analysis of Tesla fatality rates, with some noting the data came from short sellers and was limited.
The numbers are hard to trivially analyze, because there is no source that tracks "deaths caused by tesla cars" - NHTSA tracks deaths in cars and pedestrians, but e.g. not in other cars involved in the accident, even if potentially there car without the fatality was a contributing factor (fault is kind of irrelevant).
But the numbers we do have make Tesla's look pretty dangerous. Tesla's overall fatality rate may be low, but that's true in general of luxury cars (perhaps because they're driven in safer areas, by safer drivers, have fewer safety related faults, or protect their occupants better). Compared to similarly priced cars, tesla does poorly (https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17).
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.no%2Fmotor%2Ffremtind-forsikring%2Fbilforsikring%2Fforsikring%2Felbiler-krasjer-mer-enn-andre-biler%2F2-1-558339 - norwegian safety authority also concluding Tesla's are more dangerous.
Finally, specifically the autopilot is often compared incorrectly - autopilot isn't used on busy city streets or chaotic traffic situations (it's not capable of that yet) - but those are where most traffic fatalities occur. On the highway, fatalities are comparitively rare, even in "normal" cars. On interstates, in 2012 (I can't find more recent numbers), the fatality rate was 3.38 per billion miles travelled (source:…
> Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame' and fewer accidents every X miles and they can insure the drivers at a much lower rate. They will happily pay from this pool
"More self driving capabilities means fewer crashes per mile which means they're cheaper to insure" hasn't really panned out with Teslas.
In 2018, Teslas had three times the fatality per mile rate of similar luxury cars: https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17
Teslas are also ludicrously more expensive to repair, and often parts availability is so bad that cars are "totaled" or the owner gets stuck in limbo - the insurance company says "well, we're happy to pay out, when you get the repair done..." and Tesla body shops and service centers have months long backups.
Result? Teslas, despite getting into fewer crashes per mile than the average, are much more expensive to insure than other cars.
The full self driving "beta" looks to be even worse, from sampling a couple of youtube videos of it "driving."
The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old, by the way, which significantly skews things away from all the cars that have ADAS features)
https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17
> Remember that BMW and Audi combined had 9 driver fatalities in nearly 900,000 vehicle years? Clearly, 11 Tesla driver fatalities in 265,000 vehicle years is not a good start. But even those numbers likely understate the danger of driving a Tesla...
> Even without making any adjustment whatsoever for missing fatality data, Tesla drivers are much more likely to die than their peers driving other luxury cars. Eleven deaths in 265,290 vehicle-years is a stunningly high driver fatality rate of 41.46. That’s quadruple the rate of Audi and BMW, and more than triple the rate of all luxury cars combined.
The issue is whether design decisions by Tesla are leading to fatalities. They are, if you compare them to the luxury segment they are in. Advertising an autopilot feature which does not work, and moving standard controls to a distracting, inconsistent touch screen interface is leading to more crashes and more deaths.
Tip of the hat: don't discredit information because you don't like it.
> an auto-car that crashed at a rate 1/10th of humans
This is incredibly generous assumption, especially given the fact that cars with advertised Autopilot features, like Tesla's offerings, actually make accidents more likely[1][2]. Compared to the driver fatality rate in other luxury vehicles, Tesla's offerings nearly triple driver fatality[3].
This is like theorizing about a car that survives 99.9% of all impacts at any speed. It doesn't exist, nor is there any indication that it will exist, and it doesn't serve a purpose other than to prop up a contrived argument.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/02/in-2017-the-feds-said-tesla-autopilot-cut-crashes-40-that-was-bogus/
[2] https://driving.ca/tesla/model-s/auto-news/news/iihs-study-shows-tesla-model-s-crash-more-frequently-than-other-luxury-cars
[3] https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17
The thing about comparisons is you need to compare like to like as much as possible. Demographics are an essential part of actuarial statistics. I think the best comparison is between Tesla and luxury vehicles, and here is an article showing Teslas are much more dangerous:
https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17
I'm not sure if you noticed (I didn't the first time I saw that document), but there are multiple tabs and that's under the 'Resources' section.
That said, the data is obviously incomplete. Only Tesla really knows. While it's obviously a guess, I think the most damning evidence is that Tesla isn't releasing their own data to the contrary, because I think Elon Musk of all people would be ecstatic to shutup the haters such as myself.
I think that particular statistical issue is not that relevant. There are others - if you compare Teslas to other luxury cars they have more fatalities for example. The Tesla fatality data is likely incomplete. The autopilots tend to get used on freeways which have much lower fatalities than town driving. And I'm sure some more. (Here's an article pointing out flaws and suggesting Tesla's death rate is about 3x comparable luxury cars https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17)
On the other hand I think people mostly know the score. I'm sure the driver in this crash knew he should have been looking and autopilot was not 100% reliable. I enjoy riding motorcycles which have a stupid high death rate compared with cars. It's a free world to some extent.