This is absolutely ridiculous and i can't believe this still gets paraded here after its been debunked a thousand times.
PART 1
The stat is completely worthless.
It doesn't consider:
- The fact that the majority of cars in the NHTSA stats includes cars from late 90s and Early 2000s with little or no safety feature.
- The fact that the Tesla stat is only counting very narrow Highway incidents while the NHTSA stats is counting incidents from highway, surface streets, urban, suburban country, etc. Where most accidents/deaths happen at.
- The fact that ~50% of Teslas are in CA where the roads are pristine and the weather is spotless with no inclement weather of any kind. However the NHTSA stats is from all 50 states and contains every inclement weather imaginable.
- The fact that Autopilot even in other states are likely not to be used by owner in inclement weather while the NHTSA stats obviously does.
- The fact that the demographic of NHTSA include teenagers who have by far the most accident rate and Tesla's stats only include luxury rich demographic.
With these facts, the stats that Tesla are releasing are virtually worthless. They know that and are releasing it because they know their fans only care about propaganda and not about the truth. And that their fans will believe and evangelize ANYTHING and they can convince the masses with fabricated and misleading facts.
If you cared about the facts and real data (you don't because you an obvoius tesla fan). Then being that majority of tesla cars were made in 2018 and above. You would compare their statistics with the stats of other luxury (same price range) cars that were made in 2018 or above.
But that would mean using common sense, logic, geographic and independent verifiable data, which is forbidden in the tesla fanclub.
At the end of the day the safety rate of Tesla's cars and AP ends up being the same (maybe in worse) as other luxury car models.
PART 2
How many deaths a year do you think Tesla has? Have you even looked it up?
Tesla sold about ~200k cars 2nd half of 2019. A more correct number is 350k. If we do the math, US drivers drive on average 30 miles a day.
350,000 cars * 30 miles = 10,500,000 million miles 10,500,000 miles * 365 days = 3,832,500,000 billion miles 3,832,500,000 billion miles / 100 million (the average mile per vehicle fatality in the US) = 38.325 deaths.
So there needs to be 38 deaths per year. But then most cars in the NHTSA data are 90s and early 2000s with little to no safety feature and outdated occupant protection. Plus the difference in democracy as there are way more teen and younger driver in NHTSA average data than the mature and older drivers of Tesla.
For example Uber recently released their data for fatalities and they had 49 fatalities on over 8.2 billion miles in 2017. Their figure was almost half that of the national average. Uber requires you to use a car that is 2005 or newer. Imagine if they showed their Uber Lux (2010 car or newer requirement) or Uber Black (2015 car or newer requirement) figures. It would be even lower.
Uber’s fatal accident tally shows low rates but excludes key numbers – TechCrunch
When you take that into consideration. Tesla would need to have just 19 deaths to match uber's fleet or most likely ~9.5 deaths in 2019 to match a theoretical Uber Lux / Uber Black fleet.
This site has a list of deaths involving Tesla cars for 2019.
TeslaDeaths.com: Digital record of Tesla crashes resulting in death
I counted 16 for Tesla drivers and occupants. But then there's alot more for pedestrian and cyclist and then alot more for the occupants of other drivers.
So the full number is more than double the 38 deaths.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao Announces Further Decreases in Roadway Fatalities