Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Tesla here, is, again, being funny with the numbers. They LOVE to cite autopilot ON death statistics as being "10x safer than normal driving". What they fail to note is that Autopilot can ONLY be on while driving on a limited access highway. Highways are much safer to drive on than a mix of ALL ROADS, which is where the baseline figure comes from.
Another confounding factor is the price of the vehicle. The average CONFIGURED Tesla with the FSD package today costs what? $65k? More? Those X's and S's are $100k+. Nobody is buying that base Model 3. The point is that Tesla drivers are 1) Older and 2) Wealthy. Wealthy, older people get in far fewer car crashes than the average driver. In fact, car crash fatalities are really driven by two groups: drunks (or pill addicts), and young (teenage) men. Not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE to have a substance abuse problem and own a Tesla, but the average Tesla owner is less likely to have these issues. It's also less likely to own a Tesla while young.
So, Tesla autopilot stats should be compared to other comparably priced vehicles while driving on the highway ONLY. That would actually be a fair, honest comparison. I believe a recent outgoing BMW 5 series chassis finished its entire life without a single fatality in the US. That's right -- 4-5 years of service in the US without a single death. Turns out, wealthy people who drive expensive family sedans don't get in a lot of fatal highway crashes.
Here's a Forbes article (sorry) doing some of the back-of-the-napkin math. They estimated that in Q3 2019, autopilot really wasn't any safer than manual driving.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-te...
I disagree. Autopilot driving on the highway should be compared to all human drivers driving on the highway. Otherwise you wouldn't be comparing against human performance per mile driven apples-to-apples.
The BMW F10 535i had ZERO FATALITIES over its entire life in the US. Zero. It had no "self-driving" capabilities. Just lane-departure warning, BLIS, and ACC.
Yes, all evidence I've seen indicates that cars partially driven by computers (adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning, blind spot information, etc.) are safer than cars entirely driven by human beings. The BMW you mention is safer precisely because it is partially driven by machines. The more we automate driving, as machines get better and better at it, the safer we will all be on the road.
Emphasis on PARTIALLY. Anyone who has read recent takeover scenario studies is rightfully horrified at the notion of a completely “hands off” driving experience, where the driver is expected to remain alert and vigilant but they’re not inputting any steering, throttle, or braking. Unsurprisingly, it takes people about 2 seconds to re-engage as active drivers. 2 seconds is way too long, which is why it may be safer to NOT use a system that does steering input in addition to throttle and brake. You need to keep the drivers actively engaged. And no, “touch the steering wheel every 30 seconds” is not active engagement. And if a car has “self driving” but also active driver monitoring, what’s the point? The driver doesn’t get to relax at all. The stress of driving doesn’t come from the input unless you’re racing. The stress of driving comes from having to stay alert. If I have to stay alert, I’d rather just drive myself instead of trusting an experimental system that drives like an indecisive, half-blind grandmother.
The BMW was safe PRIMARILY because it’s a well-designed, modern car, driven by an older and wealthy (safe) demographic. The assistance systems are probably secondary. They weren’t even standard on all vehicles and they were very primitive in that first generation.
If you actually read the Forbes article above, the back of the napkin math actually DOESN’T indicate that Teslas in autopilot are safer than normal driving. That’s the entire contention. I do not think these full-takeover systems are safer at the present time than active human drivers in comparable vehicles with safety assist systems. Tesla is very clearly fudging the numbers to make it appear as if autopilot is safer, but the claim doesn’t stand up to some really basic analysis.
This isn’t true anymore
Still not close to good enough for people to accept:
"Participants from both countries required Self Driving Vehicles to be 4-5 times as safe as Human Driven Vehicles" [0]
https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
> In the 1st quarter, we registered one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.05 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 978 thousand miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
It is not from your data alone. It maybe, but the data is not from a controlled experiment.
Because:
1. Autopilot disengages in dangerous/ambiguous situations. 2. The set of users with autopilot is different from those without.
I have to give it to Elon that he was able to keep his fans believing a big lie of their FSD system to achieve Level 4 / 5 autonomy last year, when this year it was admittedly Level 2 [2].
The fans will continue to believe his lies and keep on saying "It's coming soon, you'll see..." when they have just been sold a Fools Self Driving System™.
[0] https://twitter.com/Model3Owners/status/1406002366923612163
[1] https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/1406304017400012800
[2] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/teslas-full-self-driving-cl...
The criticism of autopilot is really about it getting tripped-up in response to statistically rare, unusual circumstances, i.e., edge cases. Karpathy et al are working on getting better at those, bringing the rate of situations that surprise autopilot closer and closer to 0%, even if it can never be achieved -- there will be always be surprises. Personally, I would rather take a tiny risk of crash on rare, once-in-a-million-miles events with autopilot driving than a ~1% risk of crash per 1000 to 2000 miles with everyday human driving.
Prediction: Tesla will be the first of all major automakers to get to level 4 and 5 autonomy.