This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
There are approximately 250 million cars on the road and they only used data from 8 million? That's 3% of cars on the road to extrapolate into all the cars on the road. Seems like a huge flaw especially since we didn't know how they got that subset. All seems like click bait as most articles related to Tesla are...
Another good way / better way to see what cars are dangerous are insurance rates. Since insurance companies take in way more data than 8M cars when determining rates.
As an ev driver, some people shouldn't be allowed this much acceleration 0-60 time, me included.
I've got a "shitbox" VW Golf - the twin charger version, it's only around 118kw. It's not quick by any stretch of the imagination even with the bolt-on mods mine has so far.
I'd not like to imagine the levels of trouble I'd find myself in owning even a midrange EV. Being able to give an EV a ham sandwich and hit 100kph in ~5 seconds or less is absurd.
But all they did was market their pretty good lane-assist and automated braking as a magic butler that lets you nap in the driver's seat.
How could this happen??
It really shouldn't be legal to call it "full self driving" unless you can take a nap in the back seat.
Two Tesla owners got so mad…
Two Tesla owners walk into a bar. One stops in the middle on the way to the aeat and the other one drives right into a fire truck
Which is odd, because most electric vehicles (including some models of the Tesla) have better crash ratings due to having a crumple zone where the engine would be. Assuming that’s still true, there must be another factor that tips the balance towards deadly accidents. Some thoughts:
"A vehicle’s size, weight, and height certainly play a part in its ability to protect passengers in a crash,” said Brauer. “But the biggest contributor to occupant safety is avoiding a crash, and the biggest factor in crash avoidance is driver behavior. A focused, alert driver, traveling at a legal or prudent speed, without being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, is the most likely to arrive safely regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.”
Last time I looked up publicly available crash statistics in the US and calculated the per-maker numbers, Tesla was like 1/80th the typical per capita crashes of the average auto maker. That was a few years back, but I doubt that's changed without some sketchy statistic interpretations.
Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
That was going to be my suggestion.
More irresponsible than Nissan Altima or Dodge Ram owners isn't easy
Altima owners
...This is a stereotype I've never heard before.
Most deadly to driver is not the same thing as most deadly. SUVs are usually extremely deadly to pedestrians and other road users.
As an SUV driver in Appalachia, I’ve mostly only injured pedestrians.
Anecdotal, I know. I’ve only killed 2 people. What’s the average?
Now I won’t sleep for fear of jinxing myself.
Being human is stupid.
Am I being wooshed, and if no, wtf? When did killing even one person become an "only" occurrence?
If there's a systemic reason Tesla drivers have more accidents in a Tesla than drivers of other cars, that car is inherently less safe.
You can't simply put it down to "Tesla drivers suck", that's irresponsible and flawed logic.
If it's the acceleration, maybe we shouldn't have cars that accelerate the way a Tesla can. But I very much doubt that is the reason except anecdotally. I suspect more that safety features may in fact serve to distract, or people "learn" to rely on them, and than they turn out to not be 100% reliable.
We've all heard the weird tendency of Tesla breaking for no reason, that is hazard, also the turn signals are placed wrong, causing them to be impractical in some situations like roundabouts. Also the instrumentation in general of a Tesla is centered very much around the touch screen, another source of potential distraction. AFAIK even the speedometer isn't placed where it should be to observe it quickly without looking away from the road for too long.
A lot of inherent safety feature in traditional cars, have been shaved away in Tesla cars. Even getting out in an emergency can be a problem, as the handles may fail because they are electric, and the "real" handles are hidden.
There a dozens of examples where Tesla is designed for less safety than traditional cars, and if (when) the safety features fail, I bet they are a lot less safe than if those features weren't there to begin with.
Tesla cars are designed with a VERY strong focus on reducing production cost, Elon Musk is even boasting about it, and how he has an uncompromising goal to simplify production. But Tesla also lack the experience about why things are like they are in traditional cars.
The systemic reason might just simply be "They were the kind of a person that would buy a Tesla".
If I wanted to buy a safe car to drive responsibly while respecting all the traffic rules, an EV with almost a thousand horses with a 0-60 time of 2.1-2.4 seconds wouldn't exactly be my first choice.
If you want a more environmentally friendly car, which would you prefer: A Tesla or a Prius?
A lot of Tesla cars were sold when there were very few to no alternatives if you wanted an EV.
Also 2.1-2.4 is not normal for a Tesla. That's the very fastest of them.
Prius. Teslas are way too large and heavy for my tastes.
Though preferably I'd swap my VW Up to an electric one, they were too expensive back when I got mine.
As for the acceleration figure, I took it from this review:
We haven’t tested a standard Tesla Model S for some time, but a 2020 model that we ran through our instrumented test regimen reached 60 mph in a blistering 2.4 seconds. You can expect roughly similar performance from the current standard Model S today. The gonzo Plaid version, which boasts a third electric motor and 1020 horsepower, reached 60 mph in just 2.1 seconds in our testing.
We have had an e-UP for 3 years. We have ended up driving more in that than in our "primary" car which is a Golf. Had an ID5 as a loaner once, and it was great to get our UP back instead. If only the ID3 could tow our 1200kg caravan, that would be an ideal replacement for the Golf some day. Most electric cars are too large and heavy for my taste as well.
Tesla seems to me like a performance car that's sold as a luxury car. I think a lot of drivers bought it when they might not be able to handle them. Anecdotally, I remember my mom spinning out at a light years ago after she bought a used luxury vehicle that was actually a powerhouse.
That being said, your points are more then valid and user error is at most a small part of the equation.
My bet is on the extra torque being the primary problem. Rental companies have complained about increased incident rates, and they're probably not renting out Teslas.
Hertz has had Tesla's most of the time I've picked up a rental
And they did U turn on that. June 2024:
Hertz is dumping Teslas onto the used car market. The rental car agency made a huge mis-step by ordering too many electric cars, and now it’s rushing to offload 30,000 EVs. Tesla makes up roughly one-third of all of Hertz’s global EV fleet.
Since January, Hertz has been aggressively offloading teslas at the nationwide average price of roughly $25,000, according to CNBC. Earlier this year in a regulatory filing, Hertz said, “expenses related to collision and damage, primarily associated with EV, remained high.” in the first quarter, Hertz took a $195 million write-down for depreciation of its EVS.
When this was posted last week, I mentioned that it was odd that all the most deadliest models on the list were all low production cars, meaning there might be something wonky with their methodology.
There was a similar "study" done a year or so ago where they simply looked at car insurance applications and used people's accident history and whatever vehicle they were trying to insure at the time to generate a list of which models had the "most accidents" in an incredibly flawed manor (Pontiac and Oldsmobile were among the safest even though neither company exists anymore).
The data is by "Fatal Accident Rate (Cars per Billion Vehicle Miles)", Model Y having 10.6, Model S having 5.8. Ignoring Model 3, the average would be 8.2.
Back in 2023 Tesla tweeted "Total miles driven by the Tesla fleet has exceeded 100 billion miles globally—equal to 532 round trips to the sun!"
So that math says 820 fatal accidents, Tesladeaths reports 614. I'd say the numbers seem close enough?
The study said they normalize by mileage, which will account for both model popularity and driving distance. Driving safety is usually reported in incidents per mile or something to that effect, so that's all standard.
Or, hear me out, maybe they are just shit because so many corners have been cut in manufacturing that tesla cars should be perfect spheres by now.
Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
This is my first thought. Anecdotally Tesla drivers joins the ranks of Audi and BMW of insane drivers around me.
Eh, I've seen the opposite. Most of the Tesla drivers in my area seem to drive relatively slowly. Yes, Teslas can go fast, but that burns through range like crazy, so I think a lot of them want that better range.
BMW drivers here are the worst because act completely entitled. They'll cross multiple lanes on the highway w/o signaling, aggressively pass on the right just to slow down to the speed of traffic again, and they'll park across multiple parking stalls. Audis are similar, but the demographics seem to skew a bit older.
Here are the main demographics I tend to see in my area (Utah):
The first three drive super aggressively, the fourth can vary, the fifth drives pretty normal, and the last tend to drive pretty conservatively. At least that's my read from my area.
That's Exactly my experience with Tesla drivers too (Denmark), Tesla drivers generally drive "comfortably" as I see it, and I've never seen a Tesla show off at a red light.
In my experience Tesla drivers are responsible drivers as much as everybody else. So I am pretty sure this is NOT a driver issue.
Re bullet 2. Irresponsibility.
My theory is that it is isn’t the badge on the car, it’s the fact that people’s grocery getter now was the performance of a high-end sports car from a decade ago. And, like a with a sports car, Teslas are designed to encourage users to have “fun” driving. Every test drive from a Tesla store ALWAYS includes a segment where the store rep encourages people gun it onto or on a large open road.
Before Telsa it was the German manufacturers who dominated the commuter-car-with-sports-car-performance market. And guess what? Those people drove like a-holes.
Those people drove like a-holes.
That is not true. I mean the bit where you put that into the past tense. They still do.
This is my hunch too. Perhaps the UI is more distracting with Tesla's implementation of screens/menus/feedback for car functions too.
Just pointing out the study emphasize occupant fatalities which I take as to exclude external fatalities such as other vehicles.
I expect (hope) it's a small factor, but I wonder where pedestrian fatalities fit in. Several of the worst models seem to be large SUVs or sports cars - alongside these Teslas and some rather cheaper compact cars.
Pedestrians were not part of this study.
So we will see some insane stuff from Elox to take the spotlight from this or meh?
I wonder if they have the data broken down by propulsion technology rather than manufacturer. One thing about Teslas and other luxury electric cars is that they have insane amounts of horsepower and instant torque. If you buy a Model S to schlep the kids around and are expecting it to behave like a minivan you'll be really surprised what happens if you floor it.
I'm curious to know if this trend is the same for other high-powered electric cars like the Hummer or Rivian. Cars that go that fast used to be limited to supercars, not large and widespread SUVs and pickups.
(Note this is not saying electric is bad or we shouldn't use it. But maybe manufacturers could ease up on the mo powah baby.)
But I also agree with the article that it could be related to their claims of "full self driving" because people might trust it too much and just not pay attention, or have it fail to detect something.
ease up on the mo powah baby
But... but... more power better.
But the article seems to be about deadly accidents, and not just accidents.
You can hit an awful lot of things at a shocking rate of speed and walk away with modern car crash design, so I'd be inclined to think it's more than just the torque curve responsible for all the dead people.
Yeah the Rolling Stone article is written really weirdly. I don't think it's technically wrong anywhere but it reads really misleadingly when you compare it to the actual report.
Like it leads with "the group identified the Tesla Model S and Tesla Model Y as two of the most dangerous cars" - meaning they are in the list - at sixth and twenty first places respectively. The mix is really weird though. As you mention the top of the list is cars like the Chevy Corvette and Porsche 911, but also things like the Mitsubishi Mirage and a load of Kia models. So it seems like there's a lot to interpret there.
Certainly it's somewhat damning that despite the driver assistant technology, these models are not particularly safer. But I think other manufactures have a wide range of vehicles at different price points that also vary in safety, which brings their averages below Tesla's in the final rankings.
Elon: “We’re number one!!!”
<jumps, exposing midriff>
Agustus Gloop lookin mf
I'm having a hard time understanding this article. They say the Teslas have the highest rating of deadly accidents, but then go on to say Tesla ranked #6 on the list of fatalities, then once again stated Tesla was the worst. So what happened to the other five vehicles that had a higher fatality rating?
Go to the actual report. There is one table for the top fatalities by vehicle model and another for the top average fatalities by manufacturer.
