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Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

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Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#31

Post by hinkley »

sidibe wrote: post #15
lokimedes wrote: post #4

Comparing Tesla to the US incident average is a neat way of ignoring that high-end electric vehicles are not driven by the US average driver, in average situations. The driver (or should we call them executives, in self-driving cars?) is likely to have much more to do with the statistics, that the car.

It's not even comparing Tesla to US incident average, that would be an improvement. It's comparing Tesla in situations where people are comfortable activating Autopilot to US incident average. The absolute easiest miles for a luxury vehicle vs all miles for all cars.

Public policy in the town I grew up in was that intersections only got lights after a certain number of reported accidents had happened there.

There was a particularly nasty intersection near the most popular bike shop that the bike club kept going to the city about but since nobody had died yet, they weren't going to put one in.

People know which intersections are accident prone, well before the city does something about it. There are routes I don't take because there are others that are safer or easier to follow at all hours of the day instead of just outside of rush hour, or also when I'm tired/distracted. But there are also magnets that pull certain demographics to them. Like that bike shop, or the shitshow outside of CostCo where I live now.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#32

Post by FireBeyond »

Imnimo wrote: post #26

I do believe that Teslas are quite safe despite the high-profile failures, but I'm very unconvinced by a stat that compares accidents per mile using autopilot to accidents per mile not using autopilot. Those are not comparable miles - people don't uniformly use autopilot across all driving conditions. Imagine you had a subsystem that did absolutely nothing, but people turned it on when driving on empty highways. It's…

This needs to be emphasized so much more.

Short of "not driving", human drivers don't have the option of "well, this is less than optimal, I can't do well, so I won't try".

FSD absolutely does. Disengages, or is not even engaged in the first place.

I wonder Tesla's FSD safety / disengagement stats for December to February in Pittsburgh, for example.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#33

Post by brianwawok »

gnicholas wrote: post #10
bdcravens wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Tesla always activate its brake lights when slowing down? (I have an EV6, and I don't even know if brakes lights come on when I'm using regen as opposed to the brake pedal) When I'm driving and traffic is stopped ahead, I used to always brake not because I had to, but as an indication to the car behind me.

According to this article [1], the brake lights do come on. But the article is from 2021, so who knows if that is still true (or if it was ever true for all Teslas, since they only tested one). 1: https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-t...

It is. You can see it on your little icon that the brakes turn on. Anything reasonably fast shows brakes.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#34

Post by seeekr »

Imnimo wrote: post #26

I do believe that Teslas are quite safe despite the high-profile failures, but I'm very unconvinced by a stat that compares accidents per mile using autopilot to accidents per mile not using autopilot. Those are not comparable miles - people don't uniformly use autopilot across all driving conditions. Imagine you had a subsystem that did absolutely nothing, but people turned it on when driving on empty highways. It's…

I don't disagree that it's not the best of comparisons (and I wonder if a better one could be imagined + implemented...). But still, it's not like we turn on Autopilot/FSD only "on empty highways", far from it! Certainly it's a tool where the user needs to learn its strengths and weaknesses and use it accordingly, but it is useful in so many more situations than not, that it's also not a terrible or meaningless comparison to make!

Anecdata: Almost all (95%?) of my highway driving (Europe) is on Autopilot. I don't even enjoy doing the driving myself any more in those situations where I know that Autopilot is doing a pretty good job. In particular, Autopilot does a better job than I can in conditions of heavy snow / rain / otherwise poor visibility conditions. I feel a lot safer being the operator than the driver in those instances! (The alternative would often be to slow down by a significant amount, and/or use up more of my focus/attention, leading to either less safe driving or forced breaks.)

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#35

Post by bryanlarsen »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #29
cyrux004 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently not as common as Tesla. You should read about "phantom braking" issues on Tesla , especially after they removed the radar

Yeah, I can't even imagine what it would be like to implement a system like that without radar. Tesla's approach would make a good Most Interesting Man In the World meme. "I don't always tackle the hardest engineering problems in human history, such as self-driving cars. But when I do, I tie one hand behind my back, close one eye, and consume some alcohol or drugs first." One episode per 3000 miles is too many, and t…

Are you referring to the "gentle slow down" behavior that Autopilot often does or the "slam on the brakes as hard as you can" behavior of Automatic Emergency Braking? I definitely see the former more than once per 3000 miles but it doesn't bother me. I've never seen the latter.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#36

Post by mrguyorama »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #27
bagels wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autopilot does emergency braking for nonexistent obstacles. I'm sure it's contributing to rear end collision risk. I stopped using it for this reason.

Every autonomous braking system has that problem, including the one in my 2020 Macan. They are dangerously-flaky hacks. As of 2025 they are mandated by law.

I own another VAG car with automatic emergency braking. If it is actually applying the brakes for you more than in cases where you are clearly about to rear-end someone, you should consider not tailgating as much. The sensor even gives you a warning if you are following too close at highway speeds.

The radar system they use in modern VW and Audi cars is extremely conservative, claiming to not engage the brakes at all above 35 mph, and waiting until the last possible moment to apply the brakes below that window. It's been absurdly accurate for me. Once every few months or so it "warns" outside of a dangerous situation, but they are almost always situations I could have prevented with a gentler approach to driving, for example following closely a truck with a trailer that is slowly turning off the street will erroneously activate the warning because I'm continuing as if it will be out of my way, which is not the safest.

The time it activated in a real danger situation it didn't even apply the brakes, it "primed" them so that my action of pressing the brakes would happen faster.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#37

Post by FireBeyond »

killjoywashere wrote: post #21
photoGrant wrote: post #2

> For example, more than 35% of all Autopilot crashes occur when the Tesla vehicle is rear-ended by another vehicle. Well, if you want to know why some people are rear ending a Tesla, it's because it's far more unpredictable than a human driver. https://theintercept.com/2023/01/10/tesla-crash-footage-auto... Also it seems to contradict itself on data collection. First; > In practice, this correlates to nearly any cra…

Keep in mind, you can reasonably assume many minor accidents don't get reported to the government database. But Tesla is afflicted by perfect (or near perfect) knowledge of every vehicle in the fleet. A line has to be drawn somewhere. 0.1 mph? 2 mph? 25 mph? Half that? Where would you draw the line to be comparable to the federal data?

Sure. But we're very much in the data gathering phase of autonomous/semi-autonomous/enhanced driver assist vehicles, so I have a hard time arguing that "we don't really need to report this incident (not accident) to a database".

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#38

Post by culi »

Given Tesla's now well-documented history of lying about their cars' safety,[0-6] it's kind of alarming to see, what's basically an ad directly from a brand, being posted to the front page of HN

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/07/federal...

[1] https://www.autobison.com/2020/03/has-tesla-been-lying-about...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/data-shows-tesla-accounts-fo...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/tesla-autopilo...

[4] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-27/tesla-stop...

[5] https://phys.org/news/2018-05-fact-tesla-safety.html

[6] https://securityboulevard.com/2022/11/its-official-tesla-has...

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#40

Post by CamperBob2 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #36
CamperBob2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every autonomous braking system has that problem, including the one in my 2020 Macan. They are dangerously-flaky hacks. As of 2025 they are mandated by law.

I own another VAG car with automatic emergency braking. If it is actually applying the brakes for you more than in cases where you are clearly about to rear-end someone, you should consider not tailgating as much. The sensor even gives you a warning if you are following too close at highway speeds. The radar system they use in modern VW and Audi cars is extremely conservative, claiming to not engage the brakes at all…

If it is actually applying the brakes for you more than in cases where you are clearly about to rear-end someone, you should consider not tailgating as much

Thanks, Dad. Clearly I have no idea what I'm doing, or what I'm talking about, so my real-world experience is invalid.

For the benefit of everyone else, phantom braking is a thing that by definition occurs when you're not following anyone. Such as when the car slams on the brakes upon approaching a car that's clearly about to turn right from a nearby parking lot, but who is equally clearly waiting for you to pass before entering the road.

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