Tesla Issues Safety Report After Waymo CEO’s Data Push
▼ Summary
– Tesla released new data showing its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software users drive 5 million miles before a major collision and 1.5 million miles before a minor collision in North America.
– This performance is significantly better than the national average, with NHTSA data showing major collisions every 699,000 miles and minor ones every 229,000 miles.
– Tesla’s previous safety reports were criticized as insufficient, and the company had released almost no information about its Robotaxi trial in Austin, Texas.
– Waymo’s co-CEO called for transparency from companies deploying autonomous vehicles, stating that without it, they are not earning the right to make roads safer.
– Tesla now defines collision terms using Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and will update the data quarterly, focusing on collision frequency and airbag deployment rates.
Tesla has released its most comprehensive safety performance data for its advanced driver-assistance systems, following recent industry calls for greater transparency from autonomous vehicle developers. The electric vehicle maker now claims that in North America, drivers using its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software experience approximately one major collision every 5 million miles and one minor collision every 1.5 million miles. These figures represent a significant improvement over National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics showing human drivers average a major collision every 699,000 miles and a minor collision every 229,000 miles.
This detailed disclosure arrives several weeks after Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana publicly challenged companies developing autonomous technology to share more safety data. During her appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt, Mawakana emphasized that companies have a responsibility to be transparent about their fleet performance, particularly when removing human drivers from vehicles. While she didn’t specifically name Tesla during her remarks, her comments clearly targeted companies operating autonomous vehicle trials without sufficient public reporting.
Tesla’s previous quarterly safety reports had faced criticism for focusing primarily on its basic Autopilot system rather than the more advanced FSD technology. The company had also provided minimal information about its ongoing Robotaxi trial in Austin, Texas, where employees remain in driver’s seats for monitoring purposes. In contrast, industry leader Waymo has published extensive data indicating its autonomous vehicles are approximately five times safer than human drivers overall and twelve times safer regarding pedestrian interactions.
The newly published statistics represent Tesla’s first attempt to separate FSD performance data from its broader vehicle safety reporting. According to the updated figures, FSD users experience major collisions every 2.9 million miles compared to the NHTSA’s reported 505,000 miles for all drivers. For minor collisions, Tesla claims FSD users drive 986,000 miles between incidents versus the national average of 178,000 miles.
Tesla has also clarified its methodology for the first time, revealing it uses Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to define collision categories. The company considers “major collisions” as crashes involving airbag deployment or other non-reversible pyrotechnic restraints. Importantly, Tesla includes any collision where FSD was active within five seconds preceding the impact, capturing scenarios where drivers disengaged the system or where the system aborted autonomously just before crashing.
The automaker plans to update these metrics quarterly using a rolling twelve-month aggregation to reflect recent trends. Tesla states it will not release injury rate data, explaining it focuses instead on objective metrics like collision frequency and airbag deployment rates, which serve as reliable indicators of crash severity. This automated data collection approach allows for consistent measurement across its vehicle fleet while maintaining what the company describes as programmatic objectivity in its safety reporting.
(Source: TechCrunch)
