Tesla Model 3 owner William Sellers shared his experience of safely avoiding a disastrous accident owing to the car’s Autopilot features via his Twitter account.
Teslarati reports that Sellers had the software activated while driving along I-10 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on January 14. Suddenly, a car “pulled out directly in front of him.”
What really happened?
As you can see from the dashcam video of the incident he shared, a car that was parked on the highway’s shoulder abruptly pulled into Seller’s lane. Thankfully, Tesla’s full self-driving system propelled the car to rapidly slow down to avoid a crash.
“I was going 65 on the highway when he pulled out right in front of me.”
Tesla Model 3 owner William Sellers via Teslarati
This news is hardly surprising as many reports have already emerged that Tesla’s FSD Beta saved drivers from road accidents. In retrospect, a Tesla owner using the FSD Beta reported that it prevented him from a “head-on” crash in September last year.
Tesla’s FSD Beta
Compared to Autopilot, Tesla’s FSD Beta is a far more sophisticated driver assistance technology. The last few years have seen Tesla provide quarterly reports on the safety of its Autopilot vehicles.
Interestingly, the results suggest that driving is much safer when using Autopilot, a less sophisticated form of FSD Beta. According to the most recent Q3 2022 data, Tesla EVs using Autopilot recorded one crash for every 6.26 million miles driven. Meanwhile, the automaker recorded one crash for every 1.71 million miles covered by drivers who were not using Autopilot over the same period.
Notably, Tesla’s FSD Beta increased by almost 475% in 2022 compared to the previous year, with 78% of that growth occurring during Q3 2022. Remarkably, Tesla’s FSD Beta program had a total of 285,000 users as of December 29, 2022.
The report highlights that Tesla’s autonomous technology has two tiers: FSD and Autopilot. Nonetheless, Tesla’s car report indicates that driving is safer with the system activated than not using it, as proven by William Sellers’ case.
