Tesla has officially released its Q2 2020 Quarterly Safety Report, indicating that the company’s Autopilot functionality and driving assistance features are safer than cars that operate without it.
The company reported that it registered one accident for every 4.53 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. This marks the second safest quarter in company history, only trailing Q1 2020, which recorded one accident for every 4.68 million miles driven.
Additionally, cars operating without Autopilot but with other active safety features enabled registered an accident once every 2.27 million miles. This is a sizeable increase from the figures Tesla released in Q1 2020, where cars that were not operating with Autopilot but utilizing other safety features recorded an accident once every 1.99 million miles.
Finally, Tesla drivers who did not have Autopilot nor any of the company’s active safety features activated registered one accident for every 1.56 million miles driven. Statistically, Tesla drivers, whether they are using Autopilot, active safety features, both, or neither, are safer than the average driver.
Data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, or NHTSA, states that there is an automobile accident once every 479,000 miles traveled.
Tesla has made significant strides in its Autopilot and Full-Self Driving technologies in 2020. The company is set to release Automatic Driving on City Streets soon, which will complete the highly-anticipated Full-Self Driving Suite.
CEO Elon Musk has also indicated that the company’s Autopilot functionality will receive upgrades from 2.5~D to 4D. Musk highlighted the developments during the Q2 Earnings Call on July 22.
“Things like isolated pictures and doing image recognition on pictures that are harshly correlated in time but not very well and transitioning to kind of a 4D, where it’s like — which is video essentially,” Musk said. “You’re thinking about the world in three dimensions and the fourth dimension being time. So that architectural change, which has been underway for some time but has not really been rolled out to anyone in the production fleet, is what really matters for Full Self-Driving.”
Musk believes the company will be able to roll out a 4D Autopilot system later this year, which will be capable of navigating through traffic lights, stop signs, turns, and changes in speed.
Autopilot is always improving. Once again, Tesla has proven that driving with the characteristic is safer than driving without it. Tesla’s goal with autonomy and driving is to create a safer driving environment on the road for everyone, including those who do not own the company’s electric cars. Increasing safety, however, can be done quickly and efficiently by purchasing one of the company’s vehicles.
Tesla’s safety report is available below.