U.S. safety agency says Tesla accounts for most driver-assist crashes, but warns data lacks context

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mentioned the first-of-its-kind data would not but have correct context and is simply meant to be a information to shortly establish potential defect developments and assist decide whether or not the techniques are bettering the safety of automobiles.

“I might advise warning earlier than making an attempt to attract conclusions primarily based solely on the data that we’re releasing. In reality, the data alone might increase extra questions than they reply,” NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff mentioned throughout a media occasion.

According to the data, Tesla vehicles represented 273 accidents involving its superior driver-assist techniques since corporations have been required to start out reporting the incidents roughly a 12 months in the past. That’s out of 392 crashes reported total by 11 automakers and one provider from June 2021 via May 15.

Honda was second with 90 reported accidents, adopted by Subaru at 10 and Ford Motor at 5. All different corporations reported 4 or much less accidents, together with Toyota at 4, BMW at three and General Motors at two.

The data launch is the primary because the authorities started mandating in June 2021 that corporations report incidents involving “Level 2” superior driver-assist techniques, which are supposed to assist an attentive driver but not substitute them. They embrace Tesla’s techniques equivalent to Autopilot and GM’s Super Cruise.

The techniques can management a lot of a car’s driving features equivalent to steering, lane-centering, braking and acceleration. Some automakers together with GM solely permit the techniques for use on designated highways. Tesla and others permit for broader use, together with on native streets.

The data doesn’t take into context elements such because the variety of automobiles automakers have made, the variety of automobiles they’ve on the street or the distances traveled by these automobiles. When and the way a lot data corporations supplied additionally varies, which means a lot of it’s incomplete.

For instance, crashes involving superior driver-assist techniques have resulted in a minimum of six fatalities and 5 severe accidents, in line with the data. However, whether or not there have been accidents in a majority of the crashes – 294 of them – is unknown, which means there are seemingly extra.

“This is an unprecedented effort to assemble practically actual time safety data involving these superior applied sciences,” Cliff mentioned. “Understanding the story that the data inform will take time as most of NHTSA’s work does but it is a story we have to hear.”

According to the Associated Press, Tesla has extra automobiles with partly automated techniques working on U.S. roads than most different automakers do — roughly 830,000, relationship to the 2014 mannequin 12 months. And it collects real-time data on-line from automobiles, so it has a a lot sooner reporting system. That compares to GM, which has reportedly offered greater than 34,000 automobiles because the debut of its “Super Cruise” system in 2017.

The NHTSA has intensified its focus and investigations on Tesla due to the corporate’s aggressive growth of superior driver-assist techniques, together with prototype software for Tesla owners.

In February, Tesla mentioned it would recall software from 53,822 of its Model S, X, 3 and Y automobiles within the U.S. to remove a function that lets vehicles robotically roll previous cease indicators. The vehicles featured a comparatively new model of the corporate’s Full Self-Driving Beta software program.

That program provides Tesla drivers early entry to new options that are not fully debugged but, together with “autosteer on metropolis streets,” which let drivers robotically navigate round complicated and crowded city environments with out transferring the steering wheel with their very own palms. Despite the identify, Full Self-Driving Beta doesn’t make Tesla automobiles autonomous.

Release of the data comes practically a 12 months after the NHTSA issued an order requiring automakers and operators of automobiles geared up with superior driver help or automated driving techniques to right away report crashes.

NHTSA additionally launched a separate report on higher-level techniques, often called automated driving techniques, that may embrace the automobiles largely driving themselves. Most of those techniques are nonetheless being examined and never accessible to the general public, but some corporations equivalent to Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s majority-owned Cruise have opened operations to the general public.

NHTSA says there have been 130 reported automated driving system crashes from June 2021 to May 15. Waymo, at 62, had the most. It was adopted by Transdev Alternative Services at 34, and Cruise at 23 (excluding 16 crashes reported individually by GM). Twenty-five corporations reported crashes. They ranged from conventional automakers to 1 crash every from Tesla and Apple, which has reportedly been working on such a vehicle for years.

The agency plans to launch data updates month-to-month relating to the techniques.

– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.