[kdoherty]

It's great seeing that more and more data is being collected about this all the time. I'm a huge proponent of this tech.

What I wonder when I see these statistics, though, is whether all miles are really equal? For example, are Tesla drivers more comfortable using Autopilot in "easy" driving situations? Is there really a one-to-one correspondence in the distribution of the kinds of miles driven with Autopilot on vs. normal cars?

Furthermore, the metric commonly cited is "fatalities ever N miles." Are there fewer fatalities because Autopilot is great, or because Teslas are safer in general? Has there been a comparison between fatalities with/without Autopilot strictly on Teslas? Even then, it seems to me we are subject to this potentially biased notion of "miles" I mentioned previously. The Wikipedia article you mentioned cites a 50% reduction in accidents with Autopilot, but the citation is to an Elon Musk interview. I haven't yet seen anything official to back this up, but if anyone has any information on this, I'd love to see it!

[ricardobeat]

Isn't that easily countered by comparing Tesla Model S' overall rate of accidents vs another similar vehicle, with similar safety rating, including all self-driven and human-driven miles? There should be a proportional reduction.

[kdoherty]

Yeah, I think so! That's exactly why I mentioned the accident rate reduction cited in the Wikipedia article shared above.

I'd love to see official work that explores that angle (rather than a claim from an interview, which is what the Wikipedia article refers to), I just haven't seen any document/study about it yet.