Tesla has released its most detailed performance and relative safety report to date for its Advanced Driver Assistance System (FSD). Just weeks earlier, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana called on companies to release more data at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
Tesla Releases FSD Safety Report
In a newly opened section on its website, Tesla claims that in North America, owners using its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system experience an average of approximately 5 million miles (8.05 million kilometers) before a major collision, while minor collisions occur approximately every 1.5 million miles (2.41 million kilometers).
This accident rate is significantly lower than the national average provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to Tesla's interpretation of NHTSA data, other vehicles in the U.S. experience an average of one major collision every 699,000 miles (1.12 million kilometers) and one minor collision every 229,000 miles (370,000 kilometers).
Tesla has long released quarterly "Vehicle Safety Reports," but these reports have frequently been criticized for insufficient data. Meanwhile, Tesla has disclosed almost no safety performance information for its self-driving taxi test program in Austin, Texas this year. For safety reasons, these test vehicles are still monitored by safety drivers.
Tesla's FSD crash rate is far below the US average.
By the number of vehicles deployed and the scale of its customer base, Waymo is currently the leading self-driving taxi company in the US. The company has released detailed data showing that its vehicles are approximately five times safer than human drivers and twelve times safer than pedestrians.
At last month's Disrupt technology conference, when asked which other companies contribute to road safety, Waymo co-CEO Mawakana responded, "I have no idea who's on the list because none of them have released fleet operation data." Mawakana did not name Tesla, but his comment was clearly pointed.
Non-Highway Accidents
A common criticism of Tesla's quarterly safety reports is that its data consistently focuses on the Autopilot system, which is far less advanced than Full Self-Driving (FSD). Furthermore, Autopilot was originally designed for highway scenarios, where the accident rate (including minor collisions) is generally lower.
Now, Tesla has released FSD's performance on non-highway roads. Tesla claims that on average, vehicles using FSD experience one major collision every 2.9 million miles (approximately 4.67 million kilometers) on North American non-highway roads, compared to NHTSA data showing that other vehicles in the U.S. experience one major accident every 505,000 miles (approximately 810,000 kilometers). Tesla states that FSD users experience one minor accident every 986,000 miles (approximately 1.59 million kilometers), compared to NHTSA data of one minor accident every 178,000 miles (280,000 kilometers).
Moreover, Tesla has also released its definitions for these terms for the first time. Tesla uses the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, specifically 49 C.F.R. § 563.5. Tesla defines a "major collision" as a high-intensity impact that triggers airbags or other irreversible pyrotechnic protective devices. Tesla also states that if Full Self-Driving (FSD) is active "at any time" within five seconds prior to a collision, the incident will be included in this dataset.
"This calculation method ensures that our reported FSD (Supervised) incident rate includes not only incidents occurring when the system is actively controlling the vehicle, but also scenarios where the driver takes over the system prematurely or the system automatically disengages before a collision," Tesla says.
In its FAQ section, Tesla states that it will update the data quarterly, and that "the data will be continuously updated with cumulative mileage and incident counts over the past twelve months to reflect the latest trends and developments." Tesla will not release other information such as injury/fatality rates, as all data is currently collected automatically from vehicles.
"Instead, Tesla focuses on objective, quantifiable metrics, such as collision frequency and airbag deployment rate. Airbag deployment is a reliable indicator of collision severity," Tesla states.
