Re:Tesla worker killed in fiery crash may be first 'Full Sel...
by amluto on Tuesday February 13, 2024 @12:02PM
(#39359844)
> Tesla's Q4 2023 stats should speak for themselves:
When stats speak for themselves, they’re quite likely misleading.
> > In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 5.39 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology. For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology, we recorded one crash for every 1.00 million miles driven. By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2022) shows that in the United States there was an automobile crash approximately every 670,000 miles.
Let’s start with the obvious: what about crashes that occurred within, say, 10 seconds of autopilot turning off?
And the slightly more subtle: the distributions of roads and conditions driven on autopilot is surely very different than the distribution driven manually. One could try to control for this by identifying segment of road driven on autopilot in, say 10 minute intervals. Then normalize the analysis in the autopilot and manual groups to weight each (road segment, time segment) equally in each groups.
As a concrete example of the latter issue, consider I-80 through Donner Pass. In good conditions, it’s a very nice freeway. In snow, it’s not so nice. I would expect the general accident rate to by far more than 5.39x higher in snow. But, in snow, autopilot will get rather less use. (And I bet autopilot is very likely to disengage, by itself or by driver override, if the car loses traction.)
When stats speak for themselves, they’re quite likely misleading.
> > In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 5.39 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology. For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology, we recorded one crash for every 1.00 million miles driven. By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2022) shows that in the United States there was an automobile crash approximately every 670,000 miles.
Let’s start with the obvious: what about crashes that occurred within, say, 10 seconds of autopilot turning off?
And the slightly more subtle: the distributions of roads and conditions driven on autopilot is surely very different than the distribution driven manually. One could try to control for this by identifying segment of road driven on autopilot in, say 10 minute intervals. Then normalize the analysis in the autopilot and manual groups to weight each (road segment, time segment) equally in each groups.
As a concrete example of the latter issue, consider I-80 through Donner Pass. In good conditions, it’s a very nice freeway. In snow, it’s not so nice. I would expect the general accident rate to by far more than 5.39x higher in snow. But, in snow, autopilot will get rather less use. (And I bet autopilot is very likely to disengage, by itself or by driver override, if the car loses traction.)