Tesla was one of the first companies to launch Level 2. But more was promised. Tesla’s record shows 17 deaths and 736 accidents. More than was previously known.
More and more voices are being raised that Tesla’s autopilot is a danger to people. Meanwhile, the list of deaths linked to Teslas has risen to 17. Even the name is confusing: Full self-driving and the system at level 2 is far from that. The case with that promotional video shows very well how Musk deals with exaggeration and misrepresentation. It turns out there were more incidents than are known. The number of such accidents has risen sharply over the past four years, the data shows, reflecting the dangers associated with the increasing use of Tesla’s driver-assistance technology and the growing presence of the vehicles on the country’s roads.
17-year-old Tillman Mitchell gets off the school bus. The one on autopilot Tesla does not brake and runs over the student at 72 kilometers per hour. He survives, but the physical traces of the accident remain with him. The driver had weights on the steering wheel to avoid touching the steering wheel, allowing the autopilot to remain active.
The most recent data includes at least 17 fatal incidents, including 11 since May 2022, and five serious injuries. Musk stated that autopilots are safer than humans. He refers to accident rates in the comparison of the driving modes. While it’s impossible to say how many accidents have been prevented, the data reveals clear flaws in the real-time tested technology on US highways.
The Washington Post found that Tesla’s 17 fatal accidents follow a specific pattern: four involved motorcycles and one involved an emergency vehicle. Some of Musk’s decisions, like making the feature widely available and removing radar sensors from vehicles, appear to have contributed to the increase in incidents.
Tesla and Elon Musk commented on the safety situation that an accident with driver assistance does not necessarily mean that the technology was the cause. It’s unclear if the data captures every accident involving Tesla’s driver assistance systems. NHTSA’s data includes some incidents where it is unclear whether autopilot or full self-driving was used. Among them are three deaths and one case in the last year.
Ranked #2 on the NHTSA list Subaru with 23 reported accidents versus the 700+ Tesla cases. The increase in accidents corresponds to Tesla’s aggressive adoption of FSD, which has increased its usage from about 12,000 to nearly 400,000 users in a year. Nearly two-thirds of all driver-assistance accidents Tesla reported to NHTSA occurred in the last year.
Another question is whether this is related to the shutdown of the radar sensors? In some complaints, vehicle owners report their Teslas suddenly braking when approaching semi-trucks in oncoming lanes. There was a rear-end collision involving eight vehicles, in which nine people, including a 2-year-old child, were injured. A motorcyclist was overlooked by an approaching Tesla and rear-ended into it. The motorcyclist was dead.