Electric vehicle giant Tesla reported reduced rates of crashes or incidents with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite in 2023 compared to 2022.
Accident rates dropped by 32% YoY with FSD
Tesla revealed in its 2023 Impact Report, on page 148, that the number of car crashes with FSD engaged dropped in 2023 compared to the prior year.
The Musk-led company proudly reported that FSD engagement helped diminish the number of vehicular accidents per million miles driven by a Tesla electric vehicle by 32%.
However, Tesla’s Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) remains a safer alternative by 17%, based on the report.
Human driver supervision is still required for both Autopilot and FSD. However, a direct comparison might be misleading due to potential differences in usage patterns, weather conditions, roads, and even the car models used.
Number of vehicular accidents per million miles driven
Presented below are the number of vehicular accidents per million miles driven with FSD, with Autopilot, without active safety, and the total US average:
| Vehicle Safety Systems | Number of Vehicular Accidents (2022) per Million Miles Driven | Number of Vehicular Accidents (2023) per Million Miles Driven |
| Autopilot Engaged | 0.18 | 0.18 |
| FSD Engaged | 0.31 | 0.21 |
| No Active Safety | 0.68 | 0.81 |
| Total US Vehicle Fleet | 1.53 | 1.49 |
As you can observe in the table above, the number of vehicular accidents per million miles driven with Tesla FSD declined by 32% YoY to 0.21 in 2023.
It is indeed good news, considering how Tesla FSD helped lower the number of crashes compared to the US average of 1.49 accidents per million miles driven.
Without any active safety features, vehicular accidents per million miles driven grew by 19% to 0.81 in 2023 from just 0.68 in 2022.
Can FSD match Autopilot’s safety rate in 2024?
Tesla FSD’s latest number of vehicular accidents per million miles driven is now only around 17% higher than the Autopilot’s record of 0.18 per million miles.
That said, it would be interesting to see if the FSD’s notable advancement will soon be able to further lower the number of accidents on the roads to match the Autopilot’s safety.
These early numbers only hint at the potential future performance of Tesla’s true “Full Self-Driving” feature without human supervision across diverse driving situations. As Tesla refines its technology, this data could serve as a critical point of comparison in the ongoing debate about the safety of autonomous driving cars compared to human drivers.
