Teslas account for 273 of nearly 400 US crashes involving driver-assist systems

theguardian.com:

US automakers reported nearly 400 crashes in 10 months involving vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 with Teslas, according to statistics released by federal safety regulators.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) cautioned against using the numbers to compare automakers, saying it did not weight them by the number of vehicles from each manufacturer or how many miles those vehicles traveled.

Automakers reported crashes from July 2021 through 15 May 2022 under an order from the agency.

Steven Cliff, the NHTSA administrator, said: “As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world.”

Tesla crashes happened while vehicles were using Autopilot, Full Self-Driving, Traffic Aware Cruise Control or other driver-assist systems that have some control over speed and steering. The company has about 830,000 such vehicles on the road.

The next closest of a dozen automakers that reported crashes was Honda, with 90. Honda says it has about 6m vehicles on US roads with such systems. Subaru was next with 10. All other automakers reported five or fewer crashes.

In a June 2021 order, NHTSA told more than 100 automakers and tech companies to report serious crashes within one day of learning about them and to disclose less-serious crashes by the 15th day the following month.

Six people were killed in crashes involving driver-assist systems and five were seriously hurt, NHTSA said. Of the deaths, five were in Teslas and one was reported by Ford. Three serious injuries were in Teslas. Honda and Ford each reported one.

Tesla’s crash number may appear elevated because it gets