There’s some disagreement about how Tesla’s safety compares to other brands though, with one study giving it the highest fatal accident rate and others giving Tesla a good safety score.
The disagreement doesn’t really seem like a contradiction from my reading. The studies that give Tesla good marks are doing it based upon crash test results, which Teslas tend do pretty well on. The studies that give Tesla bad marks are doing based upon actual statistics from the field, and the numbers don’t lie.
My assumption would be there’s a few factors for this. It could be partly due to the sort of people who drive Teslas are more likely to crash them (this is probably why Buick is also so high on the list - too many senior drivers). Though my hunch is Tesla’s self-driving implementation is a major part of it.
Teslas turning off the autopilot feature less than a second before a crash, also helps keep that safety score high for the company. Its obviously driver error they couldn’t avoid an accident in < 1 second. https://futurism.com/tesla-nhtsa-autopilot-report
The number of fatal crashes and the safety score are not the same measures.
Insurance actuaries know the correct answer and Teslas are among the most expensive vehicles to insure, along with Dodge Ram pickups for obvious reasons.
There’s some disagreement about how Tesla’s safety compares to other brands though, with one study giving it the highest fatal accident rate and others giving Tesla a good safety score.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/11/tesla-fatality-rates/
The disagreement doesn’t really seem like a contradiction from my reading. The studies that give Tesla good marks are doing it based upon crash test results, which Teslas tend do pretty well on. The studies that give Tesla bad marks are doing based upon actual statistics from the field, and the numbers don’t lie.
My assumption would be there’s a few factors for this. It could be partly due to the sort of people who drive Teslas are more likely to crash them (this is probably why Buick is also so high on the list - too many senior drivers). Though my hunch is Tesla’s self-driving implementation is a major part of it.
Teslas turning off the autopilot feature less than a second before a crash, also helps keep that safety score high for the company. Its obviously driver error they couldn’t avoid an accident in < 1 second. https://futurism.com/tesla-nhtsa-autopilot-report
No, they still count that as self-driving caused
The number of fatal crashes and the safety score are not the same measures.
Insurance actuaries know the correct answer and Teslas are among the most expensive vehicles to insure, along with Dodge Ram pickups for obvious reasons.