Would be interesting to further classify the data, e.g. to see if there is a general relation between accident rate and the cars price range or kind of model.
The biggest correlation will be to use case. These figures are normalized to billion miles driven. That means that any models that are commonly used for long relatively safe road trips on the highway are going to have lower numbers. So any vehicle that is largely selected to being a commuter car in heavy city traffic is going to have a higher fatality number than models that are used more generally.
Tesla does seem to have higher fatality rates than other bev’s in general. So I do think there’s still something to be said about if their “full self driving” leads to overconfidence or if their acceleration is too agressive for the commutes they frequent. This study won’t elucidate causes though and anyone stating a cause is speculating.
Is this because there unsafe, or because they’re driven by douchebags? Or both?
They are also quite heavily powered.
My Renault Megane E-Tech has “only” 220hp and that already gives quite a kick.
Not sure about model 3, but all others are much stronger than that - as far as I know.
Combine that with a large and heavy car (Y and X series) and many people will underestimate how much kinetic energy it has.
I’m not really a car guy, so maybe I got some series or data wrong, but I think the train of thought still stands.
I got my first, sorta high powered and large car this year after more than twenty years of driving either subcompacts or small, dedicated offroad vehicles. During the first weeks, I did occasionally catch myself going way too fast. I have lightened my right shoe a lot since, but I think being used to sitting either more or less on the road or in a rattly, loud vehicle that required constant steering input got me used to a general feeling of reasonable speed that doesn’t work for my new, electric landyacht.
Teslas are probably the first, stupid fast car for a lot of buyers because they are affordable, so, there’s that.
Reminds me of a story my friend told about driving his mom’s Cadillac after being used to driving his Nissan Sentra. He hit the gas and wondered why he wasn’t going anywhere, then realized he was doing a burnout.
I’m imagining a confused teenager looking around the dash while the rear of the car disappears slowly in a white cloud xD
I experienced the opposite when we had our first snow a week ago. I’m used to getting a feeling for how slippery it is every time I accelerate. All my cars that I drove in winter were frontwheel drive and you’d step on it, hear what the engine did in relation to the speed, you’d feel the slightly varying torque or see the ESP light blinking and you’d immediately know what was up on the road. Yeah, the new one is an electric quattro with absolutely excellent traction control that dances right along the fine line of maximum traction even when you press the torque requester like a dumbass leadfoot elephant. I knew that of course, but I didn’t think about what that meant.
So, I felt like “Huh, hm, this isn’t nearly as bad as it looks out there, alright then…” and proceeded to have an interesting, first braking experience soon after. You know that video where that large container ship runs straight and steady into the beach while people casually step aside? Like that. All is well and nothing happened, but switching cars up a few classes really changes things you felt absolutely sure about.
Now, I was sliding along on the helm of my lovely land barge with the ABS-light calling me a goddamn dumbass for maybe ten seconds at relatively low speeds on an empty country road. But imagine someone taking their new Model 3 out on a dry summer day and when they run out of things they were sure about, they’re very likely a lot faster with a lot more stationary things that don’t care about their predicament in the way.
High speed, relatively high mass, bad driving, bad driving experience.
I jumped into my friends Y to see if it was just dumb drivers or what… The interface is idiotic. Put the left blinker on and a video shows your rear left view… But in the center console.
Instead of looking left and seeing with their eyes, drivers process the image through a screen and don’t get direct visual confirmation. There’s got to be a mental disconnect here. (and a connection to some bad turning.)
Also, the turning radius is awful. Add that to the typical driver’s fear of cranking a wheel to its limit when doing a U-turn and underestimating how hard they need to turn.
It’s easier to undo a turn and let out the wheel than it is to correct your action after you’ve reached a point where the turn won’t work.
Are they also involved in more accidents, or is it a smaller proportion of accidents but they’re deadlier?
The research into Tesla’s safety issues is ongoing and doesn’t paint a particularly coherent picture. Indeed, a similarly publicized report published in August by vehicle history information vendor EpicVIN claimed that, of all the car brands, Tesla drivers were least likely to suffer fatal injuries. If both that report and the iSeeCars report are to be believed, it would imply that Teslas drivers are most likely to be involved in fatal crashes but least likely to be killed in those crashes.
I have highlighted the relevant sentece, it is a little bit confusing.
These accident rates are normalized to billion miles driven. So long roadtrip highway miles vs city commute is going to be a major bias in these numbers. My take is that Tesla is fairly unique in that their models are heavily concentrated as a commuter car in dense urban areas, whereas other brands have more general use.
Its only that Teslas make sure to get the job done.
Ergo: Tesla drivers are involved in more fatal accidents than any other brand driver.