Every three months, Tesla will issue a safety report to provide the mileage between two accidents when the owner uses the company's autopilot and between two accidents when the system is not used.
These data always show that the car has a low accident rate when autopilot is enabled. Autopilot enables Tesla cars to automatically steer, brake and accelerate.
However, these figures are misleading. According to the U.S. Department of transportation, autopilot is mainly used for driving on highways (trunk roads), and its safety is usually twice that of driving on urban streets. Fewer accidents may occur with autopilot, mainly because it is usually used for safer road conditions.
Tesla has not yet provided data to compare the safety of autopilot on the same type of road. Other automobile manufacturers that provide similar auxiliary driving systems do not provide such comparative data.
Lack of reliable data
Tesla autopilot has been used on public roads since 2015, and other companies are also developing similar systems. General Motors introduced the super cruise system in 2017. Then, Ford launched the blue cruise last year. However, there is very little public data that can reliably measure the security of these technologies. American car owners, whether using these systems or driving with them on the road, are actually test objects, and the results have not yet been published.
GM's super cruise system
Car manufacturers and technology companies are adding more features to cars that they claim can improve safety, but these claims are difficult to verify. Meanwhile, the number of road and street traffic deaths in the United States has been rising in recent years and will reach the highest level in 16 years in 2021. It seems that any additional safety brought about by technological progress cannot offset the bad decisions made by car owners during driving.
"There is still a lack of data to convince the public that these systems can achieve the expected safety benefits after they are put into use." J. Christian Gerdes, CO director of Stanford University Automotive Research Center and professor of mechanical engineering, said that he was the first chief Innovation Officer of the U.S. Department of transportation.
GM conducted a study with the University of Michigan to explore the potential safety benefits of the super cruise system, but concluded that they did not have enough data to understand whether the system reduced crashes.
One year ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US automotive safety regulator, required companies to report potential serious accidents related to advanced driving assistance systems and autopilot routes within one day. NHTSA said the agency would make these reports public, but it had not yet done so.
NHTSA declined to comment on the information collected so far, but said in a statement that the data would be released "in the near future".
Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have not commented GM said it had reported two accidents involving super cruise to NHTSA: one in 2018 and the other in 2020. Ford declined to comment.
NHTSA's data is unlikely to give the outside world a complete understanding of the safety of the automated driving assistance system, but it can encourage legislators and car owners to study these technologies more carefully and ultimately change their marketing and regulatory methods.
"To solve a problem, you must first understand it," said Bryant Walker Smith, an associate professor specializing in emerging transportation technologies at the University of South Carolina School of law and engineering. "This is a way to obtain more ground facts as a basis for investigation, regulation and other actions."
Depending on the owner's control is also dangerous
Although it has the ability of automatic driving assistance, autopilot still needs owner monitoring. Tesla told the car owner to be vigilant and ready to control the car at any time. The same is true of blue cruise and super cruise.
But many experts worry that because these systems can let car owners get rid of the active control of the car, they will mistakenly think that their car can drive automatically. Then, when the technology fails or a situation cannot be handled by itself, the owner may not be ready to control the situation as soon as possible.
For a long time, older technologies, such as automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning, have been providing security for car owners by slowing down or stopping or warning when the driver deviates from the lane. However, the new auxiliary driving system reverses this arrangement, making car owners the security guarantee of this technology.
The death toll of traffic accidents increases year by year
Security experts are particularly concerned about autopilot because of its marketing approach Over the years, musk has always said that the company's cars are about to achieve real automatic driving, that is, they can drive automatically under almost any circumstances. The name autopilot also suggests that the technology has not yet achieved automation.
This may lead to driver complacency. Many fatal accidents are related to autopilot, in some cases because the owner is not ready to take over the car.
Musk misleads the public
For a long time, musk has promoted autopilot as a way to improve security, and Tesla's quarterly safety report seems to support his statement. But a recent study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council, part of the Virginia Department of transportation, shows that these reports are not what they seem.
"We know that cars using autopilot have a lower frequency of accidents than cars without autopilot," said Noah Goodall, a researcher of the above committee who studies the safety and operation of autonomous vehicle. "But are they driven by the same owners in the same way, on the same road, at the same time?"
Musk
By analyzing the data of the police and insurance companies, the highway safety insurance association, a non-profit research institution funded by the insurance industry, found that older technologies such as automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning improved safety. However, the group said that research had not shown that autopilot systems could provide similar benefits.
Part of the problem is that the data provided by the police and insurance companies do not always indicate whether these systems were in use at the time of the accident.
The federal automobile safety agency of the United States has asked companies to provide accident data when using assisted driving technology within 30 seconds of a collision, which may help to have a broader understanding of the implementation of these systems.
Security is difficult to determine
However, security experts say that even with these data, it is difficult to determine whether it is safer to use these systems than to turn them off under the same circumstances.
The automobile innovation alliance, an industry organization of automobile companies, warned that the data of the federal safety agency could be misunderstood or distorted. Some independent experts expressed similar concerns.
"One of my big concerns is that we will have detailed data on crashes involving these technologies, but no comparable data on traditional car crashes," said Matthew wansley, a professor at Cardoso law school in New York, who specializes in emerging automotive technologies and once served as the general counsel of nutonomy, a autonomous vehicle startup. "These systems may not be as safe in fact."
Waymo unmanned vehicle
For one reason or another, automakers may be reluctant to share some data with NHTSA. According to the order of NHTSA, enterprises can apply for retaining certain data on the ground of disclosing trade secrets.
NHTSA is also collecting crash data for the auto drive system. Auto drive system is a more advanced technology designed to completely remove the owner from the vehicle. These systems are often referred to as "autonomous vehicle".
In most cases, this technology is still tested on a few cars, and the safety officer is ready to take over the car at any time behind the steering wheel Waymo, a subsidiary of Google's parent company alphabet, operates a driver free service in the suburbs of Phoenix. Cities such as San Francisco and Miami plan to provide similar services. In some states, businesses have been required to report crashes involving auto drive system. NHTSA's data will cover the entire country and should also provide additional insights in this area.
However, the top priority is the safety of autopilot and other auxiliary driving systems installed on hundreds of thousands of vehicles
"There is an open question: has autopilot increased or decreased the frequency of accidents?" "We may not get a complete answer, but we will get some useful information," said wansley