Source: Cars in the Most & Least Accidents | Rivervale Leasing Which car manufacturers have been in the least number of accidents per 10,000 models? Morris – 16 Austin – 26 Tesla – 28 Ferrari – 39 Aston Martin – 40 Lotus – 55 Bentley – 75 Infiniti – 105 Maserati – 106 Abarth – 114 Manufacturers which did not have more than 10,000 models registered were not included in this study. Bob Wilson
So more expensive cars get in fewer accidents? Most or all of those brands sell cars priced significantly over average vehicle sales price. Maybe people are more careful driving expensive cars because they cost more to replace.
The original article is interesting and has more information in it. Some of the comments are also thought provoking. The data is from cars sold in the UK from 2015-2019. One point brought up in comments that strikes me is that more expensive cars have, on average, more experienced drivers. Of course, it isn’t that straightforward. In the full data, the BMW 3 series, had one of the higher accident rates.
Most of those expensive cars are also much more likely to be garage queens than daily drivers. The BMW 3s and Teslas are generally daily drivers.
Good point. Another factor, working in the other direction, sportier cars tend to be driven more aggressively, which would raise their accident rate. While it was good of them to report accidents per 100,000 sold, accidents per miles would also give us a view from a different angle.
I appreciate the various hypothesis, the raw numbers are pretty brutal. But there is another data point: Tesla Vehicle Safety Report | Tesla In the 1st quarter [2021 rjw], we registered one accident for every 4.19 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.05 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 978 thousand miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles. Tesla provides a brief summary of AutoPilot and active safety features. It is reasonable that this effect shows up in the accidents per 10,000 vehicles. Remember Tesla was using the MagicEye system before making their own AutoPilot system. As a 2019 Std Rng Plus Model 3 owner, my hands on (often off), 45,000 mile experience with AutoPilot has been very positive. FYI, I already ordered the late to arrive, Full Self Driving, but recent Elon tweets suggest this may be available in Q3 2021 which would allow booking all or part of my earlier purchase. Bob Wilson
But isn't Tesla changing the underlying hardware they use in FSD? How will that effect long term what your car has now? Will they install the vision hardware on yours? Or will your version atrophy over time?
I had bought FSD while on hardware 2.5. Tesla did a no cost upgrade to HW 3.0 last year. All new Tesla’s come with HW 3.0 although there are rumors of HW 3.1. Bob Wilson
The HW upgrade was in February 2020. The radar removal from new cars in June 2021. Using the cabin camera for driver monitoring also reported June 2021. The results: radar removal - the 'safety' raters all downgraded the car without testing the vision-only system cabin camera - the 'safety' complainers made backhanded comments I've put a bandaid over the cabin camera to see if the software complains. Bob Wilson
