You guys are trying to discredit the statistics here, but anyone in the Bay Area knows this is true. I wish there were stats on “near accidents” because Tesla drivers would be leading that too.
My buddy hit a construction barrel the other day with his Tesla on FSD Beta. He never once took ownership and kept referring to his accident as "the car hit the barrel".
It doesn't suprise me one bit people get into way more accidents while in a Tesla.
I bet if you split further into Tesla's without any autopilot or FSD what so ever, the stat would return to normal. Or on rental Teslas, which are always speed locked to like 80mph / calm mode and no autopilot or FSD features (at least around me.)
I don't have the self-driving feature in my Tesla; I have, however, developed a significant respect for the torque it delivers. It is, by a long margin, the quickest accelerating vehicle I have ever owned. The first three weeks I owned it, I think I nearly hit several cars: you press the accelerator and then you're there. I had to completely retrain myself to drive the car & carefully feather in acceleration.
I remember one post on reddit where some idiot in a Tesla launched it into an intersection and saw nothing wrong with that -- claming that it was unfair for everyone to give him shit over unsafe driving while he was merely "enjoying" his vehicle.
I really think this is one of the keys here. People coming from ICE aren't used to that much torque and it comes at the beginning and not the middle of the curve. If the road is even a little wet, I can see how this could be an issue and catch people by surprise. I remember going from a naturally aspirated car to a turbocharged car and getting caught by surprised when it kicked in. I think the surprise for EV drivers might be even worse. Subtle changes like that take time to get used to. I wonder if the statistics can be broken down further into how long someone has driven an EV and see if a different pattern emerges.
My wife and I would play a game while walking by the supercharger at our local Target in Sunnyvale: see how many Teslas were driving on nearly bald tires.
Not sure if it's a "tech people not realizing you need to buy new tires" or maybe they aren't used to how fast tires wear down on heavier EVs.
Inevitably when it finally rained in the Bay Area, you'll see at least one Tesla smashed into the guide rail on the 101 up to SF.
Woah, no wonder Tesla owners are driving on bare tires, the official website says that you'd only need to replace them every 6 years [1]. Before we sold our Model X it would eat through tires, we'd have to replace them every 15k miles. Our other cars could keep tires for at least 30k.
It doesn't suprise me one bit people get into way more accidents while in a Tesla.
I bet if you split further into Tesla's without any autopilot or FSD what so ever, the stat would return to normal. Or on rental Teslas, which are always speed locked to like 80mph / calm mode and no autopilot or FSD features (at least around me.)