Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#221

Post by hedora » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #76

fabian2k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to put the burden of proof here on Tesla. They should convince people that their Robotaxis are safe. If they redact the details about all incidents so that you cannot figure out who's at fault, that's on Tesla alone.

>I think it's fair to put the burden of proof here on Tesla. That just sounds like a cope. The OP's claim is that the article rests on shaky evidence, and you haven't really refuted that. Instead, you just retreated from the bailey of "Tesla's Robotaxi data confirms crash rate 3x worse ..." to the motte of "the burden of proof here on Tesla". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy More broadly I think…

So, there are two theories:

a) Teslas are unsafe. The sparse data they're legally obligated to provide shows this clearly.

b) Elon Musk is sitting on a treasure trove of safety data showing that FSD finally works safely + with superhuman crash avoidance, but is deciding not to share it.

You're honestly going with (b)? We're talking about the braggart that purchased Twitter so he could post there with impunity. To put it politely, it would be out of character for him to underpromise + overdeliver.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#222

Post by Forgeties79 » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

LunicLynx wrote: post #145

Forgeties79 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not weird. They have a history of over promising to the point that one could say they just straight up lie on a regular basis. The bar is higher for them because they have abused the public’s trust and it has to be earned again. The results have to speak for Tesla very loudly and very clearly. And so far they don’t.

But this is more your feelings than actually factual. I mean sure you can say that the timelines did slip a lot but that doesn’t really have anything to with the rest that is insinuated here. I would argue a timeline slipping doesn’t mean you go about killing people and lie about it next. I would even go so far as to say that the timelines did slip to exactly avoid that.

> But this is more your feelings than actually factual

Seems to be the other way, though I find that kind of rude to assert as opposed to asking me what informs my opinion. Other comments have answered that very well

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#223

Post by parineum » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #190

parineum wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 3x figure in the title is based on a comparison of the Tesla reports with estimated average human driver miles without an incident, not based on police report data. The comparison with police-report data would lead to a 9x figure instead, which the article presents but quickly dismisses. I think OP's point still stands here. Who are people reporting minor incidents to that would be publicly available that isn't…

The article lists the crashes right at the top. One of 9 involved hitting a fixed object. The rest involved collisions with people, cars, animals, or injuries. So, let's exclude hitting fixed objects as you suggest (though the incident we'd be excluding might have been anything from a totaled car and huge fire to zero damage), and also assume that humans fail to report injury / serious property damage accidents more…

> So, let's exclude hitting fixed objects as you suggest (though the incident we'd be excluding might have been anything from a totaled car and huge fire to zero damage)

I don't know what data is available but what I really care about more than anything is incidents where a human could be killed or harmed, followed by animals, then other property and finally, the car itself. So I'm not arguing to exclude hitting fixed objects, I'm arguing that severity of incident is much more important than total incidents.

Even when comparing it to human drivers, if Tesla autopilot gets into 200 fender benders and 0 fatal crashes I'd prefer that over a human driver getting into 190 fender benders and 10 fatal crashes. Directionally though, I suspect the numbers would probably go the other direction, more major incidents from automated cars because, when are successful, they usually handle situations perfectly and when they fail, they just don't see that stopped car in front of you and hit it at full speed.

> That gets the crash rate down from an unbiased 9x to a lowball 2.66x higher than human drivers. That's with human monitors supervising the cars.

> 2.66x is still so poor they should be pulled of the streets IMO.

I'm really not here to argue they are safe or anything like that. It just seems clear to me that every assumption in this article is made in the direction that makes Tesla look worse.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#224

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #197

sejje wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Facebook is even more universally thought of as a bad company, and everyone still engages there, too.

Facebook as a monopoly of a sort and so is hard to get away from. If I don't like Tesla there are many other options. Even if you only buy EVs, there are a lot of options that you can buy today. The only people who have to buy Tesla are the type who are buying 10 year old EVs (the limited range on 10 year old Nissan rules them out).

Well, lots of people don't use Facebook. But you're right that there aren't any real like for like replacements.

Of course, Twitter was a quasi-monopoly as well. That said, Bluesky emerged but only as an alternative with much less critical mass.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#225

Post by krisoft » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

user34283 wrote: post #102

adriand wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would call strong opposition to Musk a democratic responsibility, not a derangement. We are talking about a guy with a fondness for the far right and throwing Nazi salutes, and whose destruction of USAID had, by November 2025, resulted in “hundreds of thousands of deaths”. [1] Those, of course, are just a couple of examples. If strong opposition to that kind of evil makes me deranged, count me in. 1: https://hsph.h…

I strongly oppose the constant slander and the litany of lies partisan commenters post about Musk. You don't get to throw out "fondness for throwing Nazi salutes" slander, based on an hoax immediately debunked at the time, and then act like you're doing democracy a favor. Try to stick to the facts. Regarding the journalist discussed here, I had a look at his X account, and he posted no less than 20 posts attacking Te…

> You don't get to throw out "fondness for throwing Nazi salutes" slander, based on an hoax immediately debunked at the time, and then act like you're doing democracy a favor.

Just to clarify. This is the video context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw

Are you claiming that this is not an accurate depiction of what happened on stage? (That is the video is in some form fake. A deep fake, or special effects, or an Elon impersonator or whatever.)

Or are you claiming that the gesture seen is not a nazi salute?

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#226

Post by jimmydddd » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #218

brookst wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your points and your conclusion, but to be fair OP was asserting that human drivers under-report incidents, which I believe. Super minor bumps where the drivers get out, determine there’s barely a scratch, and go on. Or solo low speed collisions with walls in garage or trees. I don’t think it invalidates the conclusion, but it seems like one fair point in an otherwise off-target defense.

Sure, but the 3x comparison is not based on reported incidents, it's based on estimates of incidents that occur. I think it's fair to assume such estimates are based on data about repairs and other such market stats, that don't necessarily depend on reporting. We also have no reason a priori to believe the Tesla reports include every single incident either, especially given their history from FSD incident disclosures…

"estimates" (with air quotes)

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#227

Post by hedora » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #151

kreetx wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Btw, do you happen to know, why electrek.co changed their tune in such a way? I was commenting on a similarly negative story by the same site, and said that they are always anti-Tesla. But then somebody pointed out that this wasn't always the case, that they were actually supportive, but then suddenly turned.

Fred Lambert was an early Tesla evangelist - he constantly wrote stories praising Tesla and Elon for years. He had some interactions with Elon on Twitter, got invited to Tesla events, referred enough people to earn free Tesla cars, etc. People roasted him for being a Tesla/Elon fanboy: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/21838/the-truth-behind-electre... Fred gradually started asking tougher questions when Tesla's schedule…

I think you're being a bit unfair to Lambert.

If we assume the best (per HN guidelines): Up to about 2018 Tesla was the market-leading EV company, and the whole thesis of Electrek is that EVs are the future. So, of course they covered Tesla frequently and in a generally positive light.

Since then, the facts have changed. Elon's become increasingly erratic, and has been making increasingly unhinged claims about Tesla's current and future products. At the same time, Tesla's offerings are far behind domestic standards, which are even further behind international competition. Also, many people have died due to obvious Tesla design flaws (like the door handles, and false advertising around FSD).

Journalistic integrity explains the difference in coverage over the years. Coverage from any fact-based outlet would have a similar shift in sentiment.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#228

Post by hedora » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #223

hedora wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article lists the crashes right at the top. One of 9 involved hitting a fixed object. The rest involved collisions with people, cars, animals, or injuries. So, let's exclude hitting fixed objects as you suggest (though the incident we'd be excluding might have been anything from a totaled car and huge fire to zero damage), and also assume that humans fail to report injury / serious property damage accidents more…

> So, let's exclude hitting fixed objects as you suggest (though the incident we'd be excluding might have been anything from a totaled car and huge fire to zero damage) I don't know what data is available but what I really care about more than anything is incidents where a human could be killed or harmed, followed by animals, then other property and finally, the car itself. So I'm not arguing to exclude hitting fixe…

I'm using the data listed immediately after the introductory paragraph of the article.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#229

Post by overfeed » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #207

sammyjoe72 wrote: post #29

Elon promised self driving cars in 12 months back in 2017? He’s also promising Optimus robots doing surgery on humans in 3 years? Extrapolating…………… Optimus is going to kill some humans and it will all be worth it!

Optimus could do surgery on humans right now if it wasn't for regulation that prohibits killing people off with robots.

Your filthy Earth laws don't apply on Mars.

Re: Tesla’s autonomous vehicles are crashing at a rate much higher tha human drivers

#230

Post by jimmydddd » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #131

z7 wrote: post #7

The comparison isn't really like-for-like. NHTSA SGO AV reports can include very minor, low-speed contact events that would often never show up as police-reported crashes for human drivers, meaning the Tesla crash count may be drawing from a broader category than the human baseline it's being compared to. There's also a denominator problem. The mileage figure appears to be cumulative miles "as of November," while the…

oh hacker news, never change. "crashes 3x as much as human driven cars" but is that REALLY bad? who knows? pure gold

Humans driving cars crash more than humans walking on side walks. But is humans driving cars really bad?