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Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

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Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#71

Post by FireBeyond »

chroma wrote: post #62
ok_dad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, how about a stat for, "accidents/incidents which were proceeded by AutoPilot disengagement within the past ~5 seconds."

That's what Tesla is counting. From the methodology section of the safety report: > To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed.

Yeah, the "no active restraint deployed" thing is horseshit, and Tesla knows it, too. I go to manufacturer training sessions on these systems maybe once a year as a firefighter-paramedic, and there are multiple criteria for deployments these days - you can have a significant collision and if the system determines its better for the occupants not to deploy, then it doesn't.

According to Tesla, that's not an accident.

For FSD evaluation purposes? It sure as hell is.

But it's no longer counted.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#72

Post by oneoff786 »

culi wrote: post #64
oneoff786 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Musk has repeatedly been called out by regulators for his misinformation. Some claims, like the safety of autopilot have been directly debunked by research. This article has a good literature review if you're interested: [0] https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 > In independent research, Templeton (2020)compared Tesla’s stated crash rates with Autopilot enabled and not enabled by attempting to control for incr…

Your first quote implies that the Tesla autopilot had better than average performance but not by much, when normalized for roads. Like… sure. Who cares? That’s a nuanced statistic that doesn’t even change the direction of the difference.

Your second argument… again, sure, whatever? Not a contradiction or evidence of a lie.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#73

Post by FireBeyond »

mrguyorama wrote: post #67
FireBeyond wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I love my 2021 RS 5, but I have to disagree with this. Even in Traffic Jam adaptive mode, many times it will accelerate towards a vehicle _that it detects_, and only brake very late, and hard. On sever…

It's possible the features introduced in the upmarket trims are to blame. I have all the hardware for things like distance based cruise control and parking assistance and lane keeping, but the previous owner did not buy them so I ONLY have automatic emergency braking. In 20k miles the worst problem I had was it failing self-calibration and just turning itself off for a few months.

Definitely possible - my girlfriend has a 2017 A4 without anything but AEB, basically, so I have no real comparison source.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#74

Post by dbt00 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #30
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.

Better a false positive (phantom braking) than a false negative (not braking when it should). I imagine they're all tuned with this in mine.

Are you kidding me? One of the several times autopilot tried to kill me was when it randomly tried to flat stop on I-80 with a semi driver following me. No way he could have stopped in time if I hadn't disengaged and slammed on the accelerator.

(Absolutely no reason to stop and no weather or afternoon sun for confusion. My best guess is that flaky vision systems thought a semi truck was entering my lane, but I really don't know.)

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#75

Post by mrguyorama »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #40
mrguyorama wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sl…

I think I meant to add more weasel words to that like "consider". Let me be more direct. In 20k miles in this vehicle, I have never once encountered the radar based AEB warning, not even activating, in a situation where it wasn't obviously sensing a car that would be in the path of my vehicle. It has not activated for trash, or overhead bridges, or cars in the next lane over, or any of the number of things everyone else says radar can't handle. It has only ever warned me when there is a car in front of me, sometimes a car that is taking extra time to turn off the road, once because of a car in a suicide lane. In those instances it does NOTHING else than play a generic warning tone and put a red warning on the dash, it never activates the brakes, and does not even do the brake "priming" that it claims to do if it thinks an accident is likely. It is EXTREMELY conservative, to the point that I do not consider it a backup.

I shouldn't have been patronizing, I'm just so confused how the same hardware and (possibly) software can produce such different results. Why would the audi version be so much more sensitive?

>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.

Like I've driven past this exact situation hundreds of times with not even a peep from my car.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#76

Post by FireBeyond »

dbt00 wrote: post #68
ok_dad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, how about a stat for, "accidents/incidents which were proceeded by AutoPilot disengagement within the past ~5 seconds."

Right, like when they tried to blame Walter Huang for FSD veering directly into a barrier US-101/CA-85. "Autopilot was disengaged when it crashed." Yes, because the driver grabbed the wheel when autopilot veered directly into a gore point.

That wasn't the first time they'd done that, either. Prior to that, another fatal collision, released a statement, "The vehicle had warned driver prior to collision to pay attention to driving".

They, strangely, didn't mention that this warning was issued for a single steering wheel inactivity failure, and that that happened _eighteen_ _minutes_ prior to the collision.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#77

Post by culi »

oneoff786 wrote: post #72
culi wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk has repeatedly been called out by regulators for his misinformation. Some claims, like the safety of autopilot have been directly debunked by research. This article has a good literature review if you're interested: [0] https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986 > In independent research, Templeton (2020)compared Tesla’s stated crash rates with Autopilot enabled and not enabled by attempting to control for incr…

Your first quote implies that the Tesla autopilot had better than average performance but not by much, when normalized for roads. Like… sure. Who cares? That’s a nuanced statistic that doesn’t even change the direction of the difference. Your second argument… again, sure, whatever? Not a contradiction or evidence of a lie.

Ok lemme slow down and do it one at a time. Remember the battery swap scandal? There were many articles written about it.[0] Turns out it was a conscious scam by Tesla to increase its vehicle credits[1]

I've got more, but I think I'd have better luck taking it one at a time so I'll wait...

[0] https://dailykanban.com/2015/05/27/tesla-battery-swap-unused...

[1] https://dailykanban.com/2015/05/27/tesla-battery-swap-unused...

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#78

Post by ajross »

culi wrote: post #50
ajross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, New York Times, and even published research[0] have all been calling Elon Musk out for years now, yet his fans will still believe him despite them withholding data [0] https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986

This is the gallop part. I called you out on your first set of links (one of which legitimately hoodwinked a commenter here!) and instead of defending those arguments you're pivoting to another. I won't engage here either, except to point out that this isn't "published research" (it literally tells you that on the first page).

The clear and inarguable truth is that the Tesla fleet is pushing three million cars now. They're safe. Are they safest? safer? less safe? There's space for argument. But the kind of absolutist story you're spinning just doesn't hold. If these cars were actually causing accidents at even a moderately higher rate, we'd quite clearly know about it. And they aren't.

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#79

Post by gumby »

FireBeyond wrote: post #32
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.

> 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".

They sure do, and will stop when things are too complex for them (e.g. bad weather).

Re: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report

#80

Post by kelseyfrog »

Tesla is discovering it's created a lightning rod for blame.

Previously, accident culpability was diffuse across individual drivers in a way that motivating any group of individuals to action is inherently a _social_ problem, and one that is often dismissed as such.

The development and deployment of a singular identifiable causal agent casts off that shield of diffuse social responsibility in a way that leaves Tesla vulnerable to intense scrutiny. It doesn't help that as Tesla's figurehead, the collective schadenfreude we gain from Musk's failures are converted into a cathartic group joy.

Nevertheless, the dynamics of blame have changed because the terrain has changed. The closest analogy would be a human driver that drive all the miles autopilot drove in 2022 and was responsible for the same number of autopilot crashes in 2022. Presented outside the frame of this debate, I can't help but imagine we would want them off the road regardless of whether their miles per crash were less than the population on average.

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