[brfox]

From their blog: "In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident."

Notice it says one fatality per "320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware." But, how many of those miles (or what percent of the time) does a Tesla driver use Autopilot? Also, maybe those good stats are due to the structural safety features and not the autopilot. It may be more fair to compare to other cars with excellent crash protection but no autopilot.

I think it would be a great service to the world to improve driving safety, but maybe we need to really start looking at the stats and get some more hubris as we transition to full autopilot. For example, require that drivers keep their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. When more cars have autopilot, then mesh behavior between vehicles, and e-road features, then maybe we'll be more ready for driver-less cars.

[mozumder]

> In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers.

Also note that this includes trucks and motorcycles, which have much, much higher fatality rates than passenger cars. Motorcycles are around 10x-50x higher fatality rate than cars! So already Tesla's blog is doing a misleading comparison to more deadly vehicle classes.

Additionally, there could be all sorts of other variables that make it hide even comparison. Are Tesla drivers physically comparable to regular drivers? Are they older? Younger? Both elderly and young kids have a higher accident rates. Are Teslas driven in rural areas and urban areas the same as regular cars? Because rural areas have a higher fatality rate.

So we need to make sure that the Tesla driver matches driving conditions of typical cars to make autopilot comparisons valid.

Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap.

[kss238]

And don't forget to only compare against 2012+ luxury sedans. The median age of U.S. passenger cars is nearly 12 years. There are exactly 0 autopilot equipped 12 year old cars. As vehicles have become significantly safer in the past 12 years, I wouldn't be surprised if the fatality rate of 2012 and newer luxury sedans was a third of the U.S. median.

[arcticfox]

> Right now, it appears Tesla's autopilot is a death-trap.

I agree with all the holes you poked in their stats, but then with the last sentence you just went way off the deep end. What does "death trap" mean to you? To me, it seems likely the Autopilot engaged is about as dangerous as disengaged.