The detailed data, published on Tesla’s website, comes just weeks after Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana urged companies in the autonomous vehicle sector to provide more safety information. The new data shows how Tesla’s FSD technology compares to national averages for collision rates, offering a more transparent look at its performance.
For years, Tesla’s quarterly safety reports have drawn criticism for their lack of detail, especially in comparison to reports from companies like Waymo. The new data aims to address some of these concerns, offering specific statistics about Tesla’s FSD system.
The report reveals that vehicles using FSD in North America experience major collisions approximately every 5 million miles and minor collisions every 1.5 million miles. These rates are significantly lower than national averages, as provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA data shows that the average U.S. driver experiences a major collision every 699,000 miles and a minor one every 229,000 miles.
Addressing Criticisms of Previous Reports
Tesla has faced repeated criticism for the insufficiency of its earlier “vehicle safety reports,” which mainly focused on the Autopilot system, a less advanced driver-assistance feature. Unlike Autopilot, which is typically used for highway driving, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software offers more advanced capabilities.
The new report includes detailed data on FSD, showing that the system’s collision rates are much lower than those of the general driving population. Tesla’s breakdown of FSD data aims to provide a clearer picture of the system’s safety performance, differentiating it from the previous focus on Autopilot.
In addition to the collision statistics, Tesla’s report now includes clearer definitions for what constitutes a major or minor collision. According to the company, “major collisions” are incidents where airbags or other irreversible safety measures are deployed. The report also specifies that any crash that occurs while FSD was active within five seconds of the impact is included in the data. Tesla notes that this definition ensures a more accurate representation of FSD’s involvement in collisions, whether the system was actively controlling the vehicle or whether the driver disengaged it prior to impact.
Waymo’s Influence on Tesla’s Data Transparency
Waymo, which operates the largest autonomous taxi fleet in the U.S., has been vocal about the need for more data transparency in the autonomous driving space. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana expressed concern that other companies, including Tesla, were not releasing sufficient safety data.
Mawakana criticized companies that fail to disclose detailed information about their fleets, particularly when it comes to systems that remove the driver from behind the wheel. She emphasized the importance of transparency for ensuring the safety of autonomous vehicles on public roads.
Tesla’s new safety report appears to be a response to such calls for more data. The company has committed to updating the information quarterly, with each report reflecting a rolling twelve-month aggregation of miles driven and collisions.
However, Tesla has also stated that it will not release other types of data, such as injury rates, citing that it is collecting this data automatically from the vehicles. Instead, the company has chosen to focus on metrics like collision frequency and airbag deployment rates, which it considers reliable indicators of crash severity.
Defining Collision Data and Its Limitations
Tesla’s safety report offers a more detailed explanation of how the company defines and tracks collisions. The report relies on the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), specifically 49 C.F.R. § 563.5, to classify and measure collisions.
“Major collisions” are defined as those where airbags are deployed, indicating a higher severity of impact. Tesla has clarified that any incident where FSD was active within five seconds of the crash is included in the dataset, ensuring that both scenarios where the system was in control and those where the driver disengaged are considered.
However, the report does not provide data on injury rates, a common measure for evaluating vehicle safety. Tesla has stated that it focuses on collision frequency and airbag deployment rates, which it views as the most reliable data available. While some experts have argued that injury data is crucial for assessing the full safety impact of autonomous driving systems, Tesla’s decision to omit this information reflects its approach to focusing on objective, measurable metrics.
