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90% Of Tesla Model 3 Owners Tell Bloomberg Tesla Autopilot Makes Them Safer

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Published on November 6th, 2019 |

by Steve Hanley

90% Of Tesla Model 3 Owners Tell Bloomberg Tesla Autopilot Makes Them Safer

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November 6th, 2019 by Steve Hanley

Recently, Bloomberg conducted a survey of 5,000 Tesla Model 3 owners to find out what they like and don’t like about their cars. Part 1 dealt with quality issues while part 2 focused on service and charging. Part 3 hones in on the experiences those Tesla owners have had with Autopilot, both the basic system and the Full Self Driving package that now includes the Smart Summon feature. Not everyone has had positive experiences, with some drivers reporting instances when their cars slowed unexpectedly, but overall, 90% of respondents said they feel safer with Autopilot available.

Here’s an example: A driver from Florida (not one of the yahoos above) reported he felt something had gone wrong with his car when it suddenly slowed while driving on the highway. He didn’t understand at first that his car had detected a stopped vehicle in front of the car he was following. When the car ahead swerved out of the way, his Tesla had already reduced his speed enough that he could easily avoid slamming into the stopped vehicle. [Editor’s note: I’ve experienced this type of thing a few times, but not to such an extreme degree.] Others report sudden braking for no apparent reason — what is known as a false positive — that put them in danger of being rear ended by cars behind them. But even those drivers said, overall, Autopilot makes them safer while driving.

Overall, 13% of drivers say Autopilot has put them in a dangerous situation, while 28% say Autopilot has saved them from being in harm’s way. Based on the responses to the survey, Bloomberg says, “These Autopilot stories illustrate the messy middle ground in which the automotive world now finds itself. Ever-vigilant vehicles running automated-driving technology can perform superhuman maneuvers to keep drivers safe—and can also fail in decidedly sub-human ways. Close supervision is needed at all times (emphasis added), which is easy to forget when Autopilot is able to drive for long stretches without intervention.”

Six Tesla owners claimed that Autopilot contributed to a collision, while nine credited Autopilot with saving their lives. Even though hundreds of owners experienced glitches such as phantom braking, unexpected steering maneuvers, or failing to stop for a road hazard, the overwhelming majority of people in that group still gave Autopilot high marks overall.

Here is a sampling of some of the comments from people who responded to the survey:

“The car detected a pile-up in fog and applied the brakes/alerted driver and began a lane change to avoid it before I took over. I believe it saved my life.”
“Whiteout conditions. Lake effect snow in Cleveland. Streets were extremely icy. A crossing car ran a red light going 45 mph at a blind intersection obscured by trees and the Model 3 automatically stopped before I could react. I missed a driver side collision, potentially fatal, by less than a car length.”
“It seemed to make risky choices whenever an unusual situation arises, like a missing lane line or a truck merging suddenly into your lane.”
“Car entered my lane and I did not notice. Autopilot took over and alerted me quickly. It maneuvered out of the way and saved us from a wreck going 80 mph.”
“Didn’t recognize lanes properly on a two way road and put me in into oncoming traffic.”

There are hundreds of similar comments on the Bloomberg website you may want to read. The lesson, if there is one, is that people cannot take their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road while Autopilot is in use. Many would like to think they can, but Autopilot is a driver assistant. Although it gets better with every new software update, it is not yet capable of fully independent driving, which means drivers must remain vigilant at all times. Many don’t want to hear that, but the results of the Bloomberg survey suggest true self driving is simply not here — at least not yet. [Editor’s note: As someone with Tesla Full Self Driving, I fully agree with Steve’s statements here.]

Smart Summon

Owners who have ponied up the extra money for what Tesla calls its Full Self Driving package now have access to Smart Summon, a protocol that allows a car to travel at slow speeds from where it is parked to where the owner is, using a smartphone app. Introduced just a short while ago, it has already been used over a million times, sometimes with less than desirable results. One person wrote, “On my first attempt (in front of a bunch of work people) the car decided to drive over a red curb and into a median. The rim got some red curb rash & the rocker panel was damaged.”

Then there is this comment: “My wife and I are different levels of mobility impaired. Summon was one reason we purchased Tesla. Having the car come get us in a slippery or icy parking lot reduces our chance for falling. We’ve tried it in several lots and while it could be more graceful, it has met expectations.”

Bloomberg sent out a supplementary survey to 1,762 owners with Full Self Driving installed. 70% say it is a useful feature, but only 41% rated it reliable enough for average drivers to use. One owner described the summon feature as driving like “nervous teenager with a learner’s permit.” Another had this to say: “Smart Summon is a great step towards the eventual self-driving future, but it is very ‘beta’ at this point. It is not safe for use yet if you’re not a very experienced user.”

Just as Autopilot has improved with time since it was first introduced several years ago — Tesla now has more than 2 billion miles worth of data from cars using Autopilot — Smart Summon will improve based on feedback from real-world driving situations. Right now, it is mostly a novelty, but in time it may become an indispensable feature many new car buyers will demand.

Here are longer “uncut” versions of the two Smart Summon videos above:

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Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. His motto is, “Life is not measured by how many breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away!” You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.

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Tesla [TSLA] FUD: Demand

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Published on November 5th, 2019 |

by Frugal Moogal

Tesla [TSLA] FUD: Demand

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November 5th, 2019 by Frugal Moogal

The goal of this series is to examine current topics being written about Tesla [TSLA] that appear to be stirring up “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” (or FUD). The plan is to try to provide reasonable analysis about the validity of the claims. I generally do not link to the articles that “inspire” me to write this, as I do not wish to reward analysis I feel is poor with increased traffic. However, I will freely admit that my analysis may contain incorrect assumptions, and will do my best to acknowledge them in future articles.

I wasn’t planning on writing this article originally. However, after the incredibly positive Tesla Q3 earnings call, Tesla released its 10Q document with more detail and it started a whole new round of debate from analysts centered around a few things, the biggest being that sales in the United States fell 39% in the third quarter compared to a year ago.

This “problem” has such a stupidly obvious reason that I figured people would move on quickly, yet I am still seeing articles written daily from different sites stating that demand is falling in the US, and how this is a huge problem.

Spoiler: It’s not. But, before I give the reasoning, my usual reminder:

As of about a month ago, I now own 15 shares of Tesla stock. I am open to increasing my position in the company, although I have no plans to do so at this point in time. I would not suggest anyone use the following article as their sole data point to decide to invest nor sell shares in Tesla. I write these articles simply to give a Tesla-investor’s perspective into how I analyze the company.

Demand
Let’s first look at actual US demand. We recently hosted another article about demand on CleanTechnica that looked at the problem a bit and concluded demand is strong. It also included the following chart from InsideEVs, which it cited as the evidence that bears are using to bolster the “lack of Model 3 demand” theory:

Source: InsideEVs Plugin Scorecard, EVANNEX

And look at that, demand is down, right?

Well, first, let’s be really clear — demand is different than sales. While I feel that this is obvious, apparently it is missed by a bunch of people. Let me explain it like this:

Through at least Q3 of 2018, Tesla was selling cars in the US to people who had put their money down as a pre-order. I know this for a number of reasons, including that I put money down on a Model 3 more than a year and a half after it’s reveal, and Q3 2018 was when my car was delivered. In fact, from following multiple pre-order lists, Tesla owner groups, and so on, almost everyone who had pre-ordered and requested a long range version of the car was contacted in Q3 2018 to take delivery, and the few people who weren’t were contacted early in Q4.

What does this have to do with demand and sales? In Q3 2017, Tesla sold 222 Model 3s. Not because demand wasn’t there, but because Tesla only made 222 Model 3s to sell. I would guess that demand in Q3 was about 79,896 cars (which is the cumulative sales of the Model 3 between launch and the end of Q3 2018) as those sales were largely to people who pre-ordered and were willing to wait for the car to become available. Had Tesla had 80,000 Model 3s to sell in Q3 2017, I think the company would have done so.

In other words, as long as demand outpaces the quantity you have to sell, the sales numbers don’t represent demand.

At the same time, Tesla was really only delivering the Model 3 to the US market at this time. A big part of the reason for this was that they were trying to meet the pent up demand while the tax credit was still fully available, which, because of the poor way that it is implemented caused demand to spike in Q4 of 2018 as buyers (correctly) realized that the tax credit would be going away and they should purchase beforehand. Tesla, knowing it could sell those cars for a slightly higher price, had a large incentive to push sales to capture the tax credit and any additional revenue that it helped to bring.

In Q1 of 2019, Tesla dropped the price of the Model 3 by $2,000 in response to the beginning of the reduction of the federal tax rebate. Tesla stock dropped almost 7% the day this happened (I wrote about it here!) even though the price for the end user actually still went up by $1750.

Since Tesla knew the company pulled forward demand that might have otherwise waited until Q1 of 2019, Tesla used Q1 to focus on overseas sales, and only sold ~22,500 vehicles in the US. At the end of February 2019, Tesla introduced the Standard Range Plus variation of the Model 3, which started delivery in Q2 of this year.

Some of the sales in Q2 may have been from people who had pre-ordered the car and been waiting to get the cheaper variation. Although, between the tax credits and the Mid Range vehicle being introduced in October of 2018, I think there were very few pre-orderers who would have opted to wait.

Conclusion

Anyway, what’s the point of all of this? Simply this: it’s nearly impossible to separate the demand of the Model 3 from the sales of the Model 3 because sales have been supply restricted, the tax credits have shifted demand patterns, Mid-Range and Standard Range variations of the car capitalized on different potential demand segments, and so on.

Perhaps the first quarter that sales were less impacted by all the different shifting issues was Q2 2019, in which case we really only have two quarters of data to look at, which show sales declining from 45,225 to 44,000, or about 2%. Which is completely immaterial.

Additionally, Tesla sells its cars to a worldwide market, meaning that demand in one market doesn’t matter as much, and it could (and should) play with demand factors in other countries to be able to sell as many vehicles as possible at any time for the highest price throughout the world. For instance, lately, Tesla has been prioritizing sales to the Netherlands due to a tax incentive that reduces significantly at the end of the year. And Tesla should — if that tax incentive helps the company sell at a slightly higher price, that additional money helps Tesla accelerate other product lines. The fact that the US delivery estimate when ordering a new Tesla has been pushed out, to me, shows that Tesla is prioritizing markets where it can earn the largest margins, not that demand is softening anywhere.

As an investor, that is exactly what I would want them to do.

FUD articles are continuing to use demand as a bogeyman because you can spin the data for demand any way you want to. After originally thinking these FUD articles would go away because of how obvious the different incentives, tax credits, product variation introductions, and pre-order list made this FUD transparently baseless, I’m now guessing we’ll keep hearing this stuff for a few more quarters. If Model 3 worldwide sales continue to grow as Gigafactory 3 comes online, as I expect they will, I think we’ll see this particular issue finally be put to rest.

I hope so, at least.
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About the Author

Frugal Moogal A businessman first, the Frugal Moogal looks at EVs from the perspective of a business. Having worked in multiple industries and in roles that managed significant money, he believes that the way to convince people that the EV revolution is here is by looking at the vehicles like a business would.

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