In the race for autonomous driving supremacy, Tesla’s Autopilot system is making waves with impressive safety statistics. According to Bloomberg Intelligence data, Tesla boasts a mere 0.15 accidents per million miles, significantly outperforming both Waymo (1.16) and the US average for human drivers (3.90). However, before we crown Tesla the king of self-driving safety, it’s crucial to pump the brakes and examine the fine print.
The comparison between Tesla and Waymo isn’t exactly apples-to-apples. Tesla’s numbers only account for crashes where Autopilot was active, while Waymo’s data includes a broader range of incidents, such as airbag deployments and police-reported events. This discrepancy in reporting criteria could be inflating Waymo’s accident rate. Moreover, Tesla’s non-Autopilot crash rates are higher, and their Q3 2024 report claims one crash per 7.08 million miles with Autopilot engaged – a figure that paints an even rosier picture than the chart suggests.
While both autonomous systems appear to outperform human drivers, the lack of standardized metrics makes direct comparisons unreliable. As we cruise into the future of self-driving technology, it’s clear that more transparent and uniform reporting standards are needed. Until then, these statistics offer a tantalizing glimpse of a potentially safer autonomous future, but we should navigate the data with caution and keep our eyes on the road ahead.
