Death By Tesla Autopilot: Number of Known Deaths Has Surged

Houston, we have a problem. Well, Tesla may well have one. It would seem that the very automotive innovation that was supposed to make our lives safer may be making them more dangerous.

According to a new analysis by the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the US of A, there have been way more crashes of Tesla cars in Autopilot mode than has been previously reported. The new data would have us believe that there have been at least 736 crashes in Americaland alone since 2019 that has involved the use of Telsa Autopilot.

In those 736 accidents, there were a minimum of 17 fatalities, which is a big increase from the 3 deaths that were reported by the NHTSA a year ago in June 2022. There were a further 837 automation crashes during that period. It would appear that the software is running into more trouble than we were led to believe.

There could be some mitigating factors, such as the number of miles being driven on Autopilot has increased significantly, but any increase must be a cause for concern. Elon Musk has been a major advocate for the adoption of self-driving cars and thus his company has made efforts to be at the forefront of what we are told is the future of personal transportation. The public beta version of the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature is an additional option and will set you back USD15,000. Not good if it is implicated in the accidents.

Musk states that Tesla has a moral obligation to deploy the FSD even if the company may get sued for damages by a lot of people. He famously said that “the people it saved do not know that their lives have been saved by it unlike the people that die or get injured, they definitely know”, which is true of course.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the data is pretty complex and there is no accurate record of all of the accidents that have occurred whilst using Autopilot. There is also no distinction between highway and urban road driving. Regulators believe that use of Autopilot can be dangerous as it lulls the driving into a false sense of security, leaving them unaware of looming danger and unprepared to take over should they need to.

image : tesla