One of the claims that Tesla has made about its autopilot feature is that it actually reduces the chances of accidents by as much as 50%. Turns out the company was pretty close because according to the NHTSA, their investigation has found that Tesla’s autopilot feature actually resulted in the decrease of the number of accidents by as much as 40%.To be fair the agency was talking about its autopilot autosteer feature which basically helps drivers to avoid accidents by steering away from them. The agency’s Office of Defects Investigation said, “ODI analyzed mileage and airbag deployment data supplied by Tesla for all MY 2014 through 2016 Model S and 2016 Model X vehicles equipped with the Autopilot Technology Package, either installed in the vehicle when sold or through an OTA update, to calculate crash rates by miles traveled prior to and after Autopilot installation.”
This report comes on the heels of the agency’s investigation into a fatal Tesla accident in which it was suggested that autopilot was to blame. However based on their findings, it seems the the NHTSA cleared Tesla of any wrongdoing and that no recall was necessary, which we can only imagine that Tesla is pretty pleased about.
While Tesla has seen a couple of accidents while autopilot was engaged, we have also seen just as many, if not more evidence that autopilot has saved the lives of its drivers by steering out of harm’s way, or in one instance predicting a crash before it even happened.
Filed in . Read more about Tesla.