I’m having difficulty finding a recent figure for how many miles Tesla autopilot has driven, but they reached over 1.2 billion by July last year.
3 deaths is 3 too many, of course, but it’s also 10.9 less than one should expect for 1.2 billion miles driven.
[1] https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r...
[1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28225/sports-car-d...
I do like that the article does some analysis to deduce that the NHTSA-FARS data is incorrect for Tesla and they make several well reasoned arguments why. Then using other data sources, they try to extrapolate what the correct data might be.
The problem is that the Tesla data in the NHTSA-FARS database is lower than expected. Yet they are comparing the "fixed" Tesla data with the rest of the data in the database that they take at face value.
It goes to reason if the NHTSA-FARS data for Tesla is easily proven to be underestimated (i.e. there are actually more fatal accidents than shown) that the data for other car manufacturers and models are also underestimated.
It seems like these concerns are much less applicable to a BMW or other manufacturer of large luxury cars.
(For example, there are a ton of potential confounding variables that could be causing the difference other than the safety of the car, like demographic differences.)
The burden of proof is on the claimant, whether it’s Tesla claiming their vehicles are safe or skeptics claiming they’re not. Until then, neither adds much to the discourse.
They really shouldn't get the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proof is on the company selling a system to control a two ton vehicle travelling over 70mph.
It's like having a doctor that only accepts completely healthy 20 year old patients quoting their stats compared to the general population.
These cars are no where near being fully autonomous and the story that Elon is paining about this happening in a few years with the sensors in a Tesla and the current state of research is a fantasy. End of the day he's a car salesman so take it with a pinch of salt.
"For instance, in 2007 0.54 people were killed for every 100 million vehicle miles driven on urban interstates, compared with 0.92 for every 100 million vehicle miles driven on other urban highways and arterials, and 1.32 killed on local urban streets."
A better question though is what is the regulator's responsibility to approve a new technology like auto pilot when we know the general public will ignore the statistics and focus on the tangible deaths?
It's all relative. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg hears that and says: "hold my beer".
Boeing timeline:
Oct 29, 2018 Lion Air crash, 189 dead
Nov 10, 2018 pilots already talking about Boeing
emergency airworthiness directive related to MCAS[1]
Mar 10, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash kills 157
Mar 11, 2019 Boeing CEO "confident in 737 MAX safety"[2]
Sorry to be so cynical, but the Boeing stuff really bothers me. Boeing management behavior was worse than Tesla's.
[1] https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/614857-indonesian-aircra... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-airplane-boeing-ceo...
He could also be developing autopilot to save human lives. There are a lot of road deaths each year which is not going to be fixed by doing nothing.
Telsa is going to continue pumping their technology until the investor day coming up on April 19 because they desperately need a capital raise. They announced closing stores, layoffs, price cuts, and the short-lived 35,000 model 3 because cash is tight and demand was way down in Q1. Q2 is looking like more of the same.
The worst part of this whole thing to me is Musk's blatant disregard for human life to protect the value of his company. 3 people have died because of autopilot and pumping this unfinished technology will lead to more deaths.
https://twitter.com/shabudibudi/status/1116514629268705280
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTMnnECBSo&feature=youtu.be
https://streamable.com/kpugc
https://twitter.com/NetflixAndLamp/status/111452700974343782...