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Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

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Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#51

Post by InitialLastName »

bearjaws wrote: post #44
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.

Calling Tesla drivers executives seems a bit... out of touch? Maybe the most premium model is an executive car. The vast majority are $50-$65k, with a house hold income of $133k. This means they are top 25% earners, not top 5%. More important is the fact they are driven by older people (median age 48 years old), that is more important. Model 3 Demographics: https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/03/tesla-model-3-demogra…

I think GP's "Executives" remark was less directly about the employment state of the subject than an attempt to distinguish them ("people in the driving seat of self-driving cars") from "drivers" (people who actually drive cars). IMO "operators" is probably a term with more fitting analogies.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#52

Post by FireBeyond »

ajross wrote: post #45
culi wrote: post #38

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.nytim…

Almost as upsetting as it is to see a Gish gallop link list rise to the top of that topic. Needless to say not one of those corroborates "history of lying about their cars' safety", and you surely know that. But you'll challenge us all to figure it out on our own anyway? It's absolutely amazing that we have to go through this every time someone gets video of a Tesla event. There are millions of these cars on the road…

> Needless to say not one of those corroborates "history of lying about their cars' safety", and you surely know that.

From the first link:

> Federal safety regulators accused Elon Musk of issuing “misleading statements” on his company’s Tesla Model 3 last year, sending a cease-and-desist letter

Federal regulators don't exactly send cease and desists casually. Misleading and misrepresenting is dishonest, i.e. lying.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#53

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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…

And I assume that autopilot is used primarily on highways, in either stop and go or steady flow situations.

Really they should know this, because the autopilot system should be identifying it based on speed limits and detected type of road.

Of course that assumes some ability to look into a black box, but also location tracking should provide it too.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#54

Post by olliej »

This is absurdly, and at this point clearly intentionally, disingenuous.

You would absolutely expect Autopilot/FSD to have fewer crashes than human-in-control crashes because AP/FSD isn't available in the conditions that result in more crashes: bad/variable roads, poor conditions, etc. Anything else would imply AP/FSD is absurdly dangerous as it would be getting higher crash rates in good conditions than human drivers in bad conditions.

If AP/FSD were actually better and/or safer than human drivers you would expect Tesla to aggressively demonstrate that. Given that they are choosing not to compare crash rates by road condition it is reasonable to assume that the statistics do not support the claim.

This is before we get into whether AP/FSD disconnecting moments before crashing counts as crashing under AP/FSD. I recall articles claiming that Tesla didn't include such crashes as being caused by AP/FSD, but I have no idea if that was ever confirmed. Certainly I know Tesla has gone out of its way to blame drivers for AP/FSD crashes, so my faith in any kind of honesty from Tesla in these matters is minimal.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#55

Post by oneoff786 »

culi wrote: post #38

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.nytim…

I read through all these links. They’re not great aside from the worker safety one.

The first one states that Tesla is being misleading for claiming that it’s cars scores better for safety but not mentioning that the weight classes affect the scores. The original claim is still true though.

Most of the others deal with the claim that the cars accidents per mile ratings are lower because they’re highway miles or because they’re driven by rich people. But… they’re still low.

You can argue at best that there is no rigorous proof that Tesla cars are safer than other cars and that these are cherry picked stats for marketing. But there’s no compelling evidence that they’re more dangerous. Calling them lies is disingenuous. Regardless of one’s opinion of musk.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#56

Post by FireBeyond »

oneoff786 wrote: post #55
culi wrote: post #38

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.nytim…

I read through all these links. They’re not great aside from the worker safety one. The first one states that Tesla is being misleading for claiming that it’s cars scores better for safety but not mentioning that the weight classes affect the scores. The original claim is still true though. Most of the others deal with the claim that the cars accidents per mile ratings are lower because they’re highway miles or becau…

[Deleted for my poor reading comprehension].

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#57

Post by enragedcacti »

seeekr wrote: post #34
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 compa…

> and I wonder if a better one could be imagined + implemented...

There is a ton of data using industry defined conditions and a ton of research has gone into determining the types of conditions that can affect accident rates. The only reason we can't compare is because Tesla only releases what we see in the link above. [1]

Best guess estimates of normalizing autopilot data against the average mix of highway/city driving finds that AP's safety advantage effectively disappears. Of course this is rough and Tesla likely has much better data that they are choosing not to share. [2]

[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban...

[2] https://twitter.com/NoahGoodall/status/1489291552845357058

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#58

Post by oneoff786 »

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 is true, but there’s a counterpoint here too. If the autopilot takes all of the “easy miles” then you should expect to see a spike or accidents concentrated on the non autopilot “hard miles”.

Since we don’t see that spike, I’m inclined to believe that the effect size of the highway driving preference is relatively small.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#59

Post by jacquesm »

gnicholas wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as soon as you hit regen your brake lights come on. I tested this with a Honda Hybrid a long time ago to make sure. If your car has a diagram somewhere that you can display while driving you will actually see it on the display.

This isn't a universal truth. It varies by vehicle, and apparently even by what level of regen is selected. https://www.greencarfuture.com/electric/does-regen-braking-t...

"Conclusion: Do Brake Lights Activate During Regenerative Braking? Yes, but Stay Alert"

Seems pretty obvious, the idea is that engine braking would also cause your car to slow down without lighting up the brake lights so any kind of slowdown at that level would not normally engage the brake lights. But as soon as you slow down more than that the lights will come on, making its behavior pretty close to what you'd expect from a regular car with and ICE lacking regenerative braking.

Or would you suggest that a normal car should engage it's brake lights when you let go of the accelerator and engine brake? (I can see a case for that.)

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#60

Post by throwawayacc3 »

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…

>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.

How unpredictable is a solid 5 seconds of the Tesla signaling it's lane change then slowing down? I blame the asshole that was in the far left lane going way too fast and not slowing down (just letting off the accelerator when the Tesla signalled would have prevented the accident) when someone is trying to enter. Then they brake way too late. Everyone behind that first vehicle is also to blame for following too closely at too fast of a speed.

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