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Tesla Has Highest Rate of Deadly Accidents Among Car Brands, Study Finds (www.rollingstone.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by shoulderoforion@fedia.io to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Automotive research firm finds that Tesla has higher frequency of deadly accidents than any other car brand

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[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 134 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (55 children)

Which is odd, because most electric vehicles (including some models of the Tesla) have better crash ratings due to having a crumple zone where the engine would be. Assuming that’s still true, there must be another factor that tips the balance towards deadly accidents. Some thoughts:

They are heavy cars. Maybe it’s safer for the passengers but more deadly for the other vehicle.
Maybe Tesla drivers are more irresponsible than other car owners.
Maybe the torque and acceleration is too high, causing people to lose control more often.
Maybe something that doesn’t get rated in the crash ratings causes deaths, eg. electric locks which are unable to open when power is lost, a likely scenario during collisions.
Maybe the FSD features are causing more collisions to happen.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 25 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

When this was posted last week, I mentioned that it was odd that all the most deadliest models on the list were all low production cars, meaning there might be something wonky with their methodology.

There was a similar "study" done a year or so ago where they simply looked at car insurance applications and used people's accident history and whatever vehicle they were trying to insure at the time to generate a list of which models had the "most accidents" in an incredibly flawed manor (Pontiac and Oldsmobile were among the safest even though neither company exists anymore).

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 17 points 3 weeks ago

The study said they normalize by mileage, which will account for both model popularity and driving distance. Driving safety is usually reported in incidents per mile or something to that effect, so that's all standard.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 weeks ago

The data is by "Fatal Accident Rate (Cars per Billion Vehicle Miles)", Model Y having 10.6, Model S having 5.8. Ignoring Model 3, the average would be 8.2. Back in 2023 Tesla tweeted "Total miles driven by the Tesla fleet has exceeded 100 billion miles globally—equal to 532 round trips to the sun!"
So that math says 820 fatal accidents, Tesladeaths reports 614. I'd say the numbers seem close enough?

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