How Tesla Misleads You With These Fully Self-Driving Beta Safety Numbers
A Tesla with the Full Self-Driving Beta enabled is five times safer than any other car, Tesla claims, and the stats seem to back it up. But with these stats, Tesla is comparing apples to oranges.
On twitter Tesla wrote the followingOver the last 12 months, a Tesla with FSD Beta has been involved in an airbag deployment accident every 3.2 million miles on average. That’s five times safer than the US average of 600,000 miles.”
Tesla with Full Self-Driving Beta is like no other
Fantastic! Cheers to the Full Self-Driving Beta! But wait, the numbers Tesla quotes are misleading. A Tesla with FSD Beta cannot simply be compared with the American average when it comes to accident statistics.
Why not? Because of many reasons. Until November 2022, only Tesla drivers with a safety score above 80 were allowed to participate in the FSD beta study. This means that mainly Tesla’s safe drivers have the system.
FSD Beta far from perfect and shut down on the verge of crashing?
Also, Full Self-Driving Beta is far from perfect, as you can see from hundreds of Youtube videos full of near misses. Tesla drivers who have the system turned on are likely to pay above average attention, otherwise they’ll be stuck in a corner.
In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the American RDW, found out that a Tesla on autopilot switches off this system fractions of a second before a collision. The NHTSA doesn’t want to draw any conclusions yet.
Only with Level 2 autonomy, according to Tesla itself
Full self-driving is little more than an extension of autopilot. Finally, on Tesla’s website, the manufacturer concedes that both systems are not self-driving at all. They do not go beyond level 2 autonomy, just like systems from other brands.
Another reason that comes to mind for questioning Tesla’s stats is the fact that autopilot and full self-driving are used especially on freeways. And there are fewer collisions there than, for example, in built-up areas.
In short, there’s a lot to be said against Tesla’s claim that cars with Full Self-Driving Beta are five times safer. The numbers provided by the brand are just as misleading as the Full Self-Driving name itself.