Is the standard Tesla Autopilot safer than manual driving?

[hgmichna]

When I activate the standard Tesla Autopilot while driving on a highway with four or more total lanes, does that increase my safety?

The Tesla safety report does not answer this, obviously, so the question leads to whether anybody has analyzed some relevant data to find out.

Subjectively it seems to me that Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) increases safety, and Autopilot increases safety further. But I'd like to see some good data on this, ideally with quantification (like how many more accidents do we have with manual driving).

 

[EVRider-FL]

Tesla has claimed that AP is safer than manual driving before, and included some statistics to back that up. You should be able to Google it.

Having used AP on many road trips, I have no doubt that it’s safer than manual driving on the highway.

 

[Frank Langella]

The tesla safety statistics I saw were not apples to oranges and were therefore meaningless but maybe they've put together some better data.

 

[mgs333]

Basic Autopilot tends to get used more often in low risk scenarios (staying in 1 lane, relatively straight roads/highways, no lane changes, no cross traffic etc.) so you'd expect the accident rate to be lower than all manual driving. Even for manual driving, highways have lower rates of accidents vs city driving.

 

[BillyW]

Driving with Autopilot is far safer than driving without it. Check out tesla.com/vehiclesafetyreport. A lot of TSLAQ people will try to say these numbers arent real or meaningful but never have any of their own to back it up. Always keep in mind that there are people trying to profit by being short Tesla.