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NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

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Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#61

Post by sandworm101 »

mikeash wrote: post #29
sandworm101 wrote: post #5

Great. There is no doubt that driver assists cut down on crashes. But what tesla has on the road is far from a total eyes-closed autopilot. That is an inflection point with this tech that nobody has dared to test on the public road. I remain unconvinced pending those trials. Also, still havent seen any autodrive handle off-road driving such as boarding a carferry or navigate a construction zone manned by an inattenti…

Haven't there been a lot of tests of self-driving technology on public roads? Tesla has released a couple of videos of theirs, and Google has put a couple million miles on theirs. What hasn't happened yet is a production-ready, customer-owned vehicle on public roads.

Not unsupervised. Unleashing a robot into school zones without a human in the loop is still considered too dangerous legally if not physically.

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#63

Post by onmobiletemp »

Roritharr wrote: post #4
snewman wrote: post #2

Tesla comes off extremely well in this report. For one thing, the 40% statistic cited in the headline appears to be well supported by the NHTSA report (section 5.4) and actually manages to frame the incident in a very positive light: ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package, either in…

I really would like to know the absolute numbers for this reduction. It's really questionable if this would hold up with millions of Teslas on the road in the hands of less wealthy(probably better educated) drivers.

They said it was a 40 percent drop after the roll out of auto-pilot features. That means it dropped 40 percent with the same driver base. Please read the article before posting comments.

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#64

Post by Ar-Curunir »

jfoutz wrote: post #54
up_and_up wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think peoples ability to behave/drive responsibly vs recklessly could be at all linked to their demographic profile? I am talking statistically, not looking for anecdotes...

Varying insurance rates based on age and gender seem to indicate that, yes, demographics play a role in driving responsibility. A Tesla is not a cheap car. I kind of suspect the average Tesla driver is more responsible than the average driver. It may be the case that the average Tesla driver is very well off, and treat the cars as expensive toys though, so it's tough to say without numbers. If i had to bet right now,…

Isn't this even better for Tesla then? People that supposedly already drive carefully now have fewer accidents.

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#65

Post by chrisseaton »

huangc10 wrote: post #28

Can anyone who is in the industry comment on how Autopilot performs in poor weather (ie. flash floods, thunderstorms, snowstorms etc...) All I can find from the article about weather was in section 3.1: > The manual includes several additional warnings related to system limitations, use near pedestrians and cyclists, and use on winding roads with sharp curves or with slippery surfaces or poor weather conditions. The…

How well does anyone drive through a flash flood?

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#66

Post by r00fus »

Pxtl wrote: post #53
mikeash wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Level 3 is the real danger area. That's the level where the driver is able to do other things, but must be prepared to retake control at any time. Those two ideas are basically contradictory: if you're not already involved with driving, it takes too long to get back into it to do anything useful. Tesla's system is level 2, meaning that the driver must (as in, is supposed to) remain engaged and aware of the driving ta…

There is zero chance I'd stay awake behind the wheel of a level 2 or 3 vehicle.

You need audiobooks or podcasts. Heck, I love taking a conference call while on my commute (handsfree of course) - 80% of it is in the left lane of an interstate.

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#67

Post by Ar-Curunir »

Roritharr wrote: post #4
snewman wrote: post #2

Tesla comes off extremely well in this report. For one thing, the 40% statistic cited in the headline appears to be well supported by the NHTSA report (section 5.4) and actually manages to frame the incident in a very positive light: ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package, either in…

I really would like to know the absolute numbers for this reduction. It's really questionable if this would hold up with millions of Teslas on the road in the hands of less wealthy(probably better educated) drivers.

So "better" drivers saw 40% reduction; doesn't that indicate that worse drivers will see even greater reduction in accidents?

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#68

Post by wishinghand »

sandworm101 wrote: post #25
Tepix wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point?

The dream remains a dream. Being able to call your car like batman did the batmobile, a car able to navigate unsupervised is still a decade, perhaps decades, away.

Ok sure, but I don't care about that as much as I care about a drastic reduction in danger on the road. This is a big step forward for that.

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#69

Post by atonalfreerider »

mozumder wrote: post #59
atonalfreerider wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthy motorists drive more recklessly: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.short

I think you pointed to the wrong link. That's a study about ethics, not safety.

If you read the abstract you will see that the studies involve driver behavior.

"Results Studies 1 and 2. Our first two studies were naturalistic field studies, and examined whether upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals while driving. In study 1, we investigated whether upper-class drivers were more likely to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way intersection with stop signs on all sides. As vehicles are reliable indicators of a person's social rank and wealth (15), we used observers’ codes of vehicle status (make, age, and appearance) to index drivers’ social class. Observers stood near the intersection, coded the status of approaching vehicles, and recorded whether the driver cut off other vehicles by crossing the intersection before waiting their turn, a behavior that defies the California Vehicle Code. In the present study, 12.4% of drivers cut in front of other vehicles. A binary logistic regression indicated that upper-class drivers were the most likely to cut off other vehicles at the intersection, even when controlling for time of day, driver's perceived sex and age, and amount of traffic, b = 0.36, SE b = 0.18, P < 0.05"

Re: NHTSA’s full investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot shows 40% crash rate reduction

#70

Post by fmihaila »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #60
fmihaila wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is reasonable to assume that Tesla TACC is not less safe than Tesla non-TACC, therefore the conclusion is also relevant to comparisons between Tesla level 0 (entirely human-driven, no assist) vs. Tesla level 2.

Why would it be reasonable to assume that?

Because traffic-aware cruise control has existed for years from other car manufactures, and I have seen no data showing that this feature decreases safety.
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