Tesla has data on how much time their cars spend on autopilot. If Tesla wants to promote their crash rate, they need to disclose the raw data.
Total vehicle miles for vehicles with a system that only works right on freeways is guessing. The accident rate of interest is autopilot miles on freeways vs all vehicles miles on freeways. Here's the US data summary for all vehicles.[1] See table 35, which breaks out divided highway data.
The focus on fatal collisions is misplaced. There are far more non-fatal collisions, which provides much more information. Evaluating Tesla's "autopilot" is about measuring driving error, not crash survivability.
There needs to be at least some emphasis on fatalities. If autopilot reduces total collisions but increases fatalities, you might draw the wrong conclusion about its safety. It's early but from the incidents we know already, it seems like a decent probability that this is the situation that Tesla is in, lower crash rate but more likely for those crashes to be fatal.
Total vehicle miles for vehicles with a system that only works right on freeways is guessing. The accident rate of interest is autopilot miles on freeways vs all vehicles miles on freeways. Here's the US data summary for all vehicles.[1] See table 35, which breaks out divided highway data.
The focus on fatal collisions is misplaced. There are far more non-fatal collisions, which provides much more information. Evaluating Tesla's "autopilot" is about measuring driving error, not crash survivability.
[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8123...