TL;DR: Self-Driving Teslas Rear-End Motorcyclists, Killing at Least 5
Brevity is the spirit of wit, and I am just not that witty. This is a long article, here is the gist of it:
- The NHTSA’s self-driving crash data reveals that Tesla’s self-driving technology is, by far, the most dangerous for motorcyclists, with five fatal crashes that we know of.
- This issue is unique to Tesla. Other self-driving manufacturers have logged zero motorcycle fatalities with the NHTSA in the same time frame.
- The crashes are overwhelmingly Teslas rear-ending motorcyclists.
Read our full analysis as we go case-by-case and connect the heavily redacted government data to news reports and police documents.
Oh, and read our thoughts about what this means for the robotaxi launch that is slated for Austin in less than 60 days.
No, the zero accidents for other self-driving vehicles is actually zero :) You may have heard of this little boutique automotive manufacturer, Ford Motor Company. They’re one of the primary competitors, and they are far above the mileage where you would expect a fatal accident if they were as safe as a human.
Ford has reported self-driving crashes (many of them!). Just no fatal crashes involving motorcycles, because I guess they don’t fucking suck at making self-driving software.
I linked the data, it’s all public governmental data, and only the Tesla crashes are heavily redacted. You could… IDK… read it, and then share your opinion about it?
And how did it compare self-driving time or miles? Because on the surface if Tesla is responsible for 5 such accidents and Ford zero, but Tesla has significantly more than five times the self-driving time or miles, then we just don’t have data yet …… and I see an announcement that Ford expects full self driving in 2026, so it can’t have been used much yet