At first glance, the data from the first year of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s project to monitor the safety of advanced driver assistance systems seems terrible to Tesla. Its electric vehicles were involved in 70% of accidents reported with level 2 technologies, 60% of those that caused serious injuries and almost 85% of fatalities.
Data released early Wednesday was collected under the Federal Regulatory Standing General Order issued last June, which required automakers to report the most serious accidents involving Level 2 ADAS, which require a human driver to stay fully engaged in the task of driving. NHTSA is also tracking accidents involving fully automated vehicles, none of which are currently available to consumers.
There are five levels of automation under standards created by SAE International. Level 2 means that two functions, such as adaptive cruising and lane keeping, are automated and still have a human driver up to date at all times. Level 2 is an advanced driver assistance system and has become increasingly common in new vehicles.
Tesla topped the ADAS list for all the wrong reasons: 273 reported crashes, three with serious injuries and five deaths. Honda was far behind Tesla with 90 crashes and one death, while most other manufacturers reported only a handful. Nissan did not report any.
So, does that mean that Tesla owners should replace their Model 3 with Autopilot for a Nissan Leaf and their own Level 2 ADAS, called ProPilot?
It’s a more complicated question than one might think. The way the Order is worded, the technologies Tesla has deployed, and the sheer number of Tesla vehicles on the road make their vehicles less dangerous than the numbers suggest.
For starters, there are more ADAS-equipped Tesla on the road (about 830,000) than vehicles from other manufacturers, though Nissan is not far behind, with 560,000.
Tesla autopilot can also be used on a variety of roads, unlike Nissan’s ProPilot and GM’s SuperCruise systems, which are limited to roads. Without knowing the number of kilometers traveled with each ADAS system in operation, and where, it is impossible to compare their relative levels of safety, or how each could contrast with accident rates under total human control.
The order required manufacturers to report all known incidents, but most vehicles on the road do not have remote telematics that sends vehicle data to the factory. The manufacturers of these cars relied on consumer complaints (which comprised most of the reports), contacts with law enforcement, or media stories, which they may not have accurately reported if their ADAS systems were in use.
Tesla, on the other hand, knows exactly which vehicles used Autopilot when they crashed, as their vehicles have mobile and Wi-Fi connections that automatically report vehicle data when an accident occurs. Almost all of its accident reports came from this telematics, compared to only nine from Subaru, four from GM, three from Lucid and one from Honda.
Finally, the Order required manufacturers to include data on accidents that were reported to them 10 days after the publication of the Order last June. In the case of Tesla, it appears to have included accidents dating back to 2019, including three of its five fatal and three serious accidents. (It’s unclear why Tesla only reported these accidents months or years after they happened.) Aside from Tesla, only Honda reported a couple of accidents before June 2021.
While all of these variables seem to point in the same direction: a relative over-reporting of Tesla crash data and an insufficient crash report involving other automakers, its impact is impossible to quantify just from NHTSA data. Perhaps all level 2 systems are more dangerous than just human drivers, due to the driver’s lack of attention. Or it could be that the Tesla autopilot as deployed is in fact less competent and more dangerous than rival ADAS technologies.
“The data released today is a good start, but it doesn’t offer an apple-to-apple comparison of advanced vehicle safety,” said National Transportation Safety Board President Jennifer Homendy. “What NHTSA provided was a ‘fruitful’ data with many warnings, making it difficult for the public and experts to understand what is being reported. Independent data analysis is key to identifying security gaps and possible remedies “.
The final word on Autopilot will have to wait for NHTSA’s separate, ongoing and recently expanded Autopilot investigation, which could lead to a withdrawal. Meanwhile, drivers with Level 2 systems in their cars should heed the advice of the NHTSA: “No commercially available motor vehicle today is capable of driving themselves.”