‘Automated Tesla cars can save 900,000 lives a year,’ says carmaker
02 Apr 2018
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Despite the recent instances of accidents and deaths involving self-driving cars, promoters of the new technology are still pushing ahead with the development.
Last month saw two major accidents in the US killing a driver and a pedestrian. In the first incident in California, a sports-utility Model X car crashed killing the driver who was operating on autopilot (See: US safety board to investigate second Tesla autopilot crash). The second accident saw a pedestrian in Arizona being killed by a self-driving Volvo SUV being test driven by Uber.
US federal investigators are probing the crashes involving cars operating under the autopilot system. But the developers of the new vehicles are pushing ahead with the new technology.
Tesla, which is leading the drive for automated cars, spelt out its views in an update on last week’s accident. “The safety of our customers is our top priority, which is why we are working closely with investigators to understand what happened, and what we can do to prevent this from happening in the future,” said the company.
The reason the crash was so severe is because the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed in a prior accident without being replaced, it pointed out, referring to the California accident.
“We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash,” added the company.
According to Tesla, there are about 1.25 million automotive deaths worldwide. “If the current safety level of a Tesla vehicle were to be applied, it would mean about 900,000 lives saved per year. We expect the safety level of autonomous cars to be 10 times safer than non-autonomous cars.”
The company further notes that in the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers.
“For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident.”
