Jun 15, 2022 - Economy

Teslas made up nearly 70% of assisted-driving crashes in last year

Ivana Saric

Elon Musk — Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Teslas driving on the car's Autopilot function were involved in 273 crashes over roughly the last year, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released Wednesday.

Why it matters: Tesla has made up nearly 70% of the 392 car crashes that have occurred since last June involving vehicles using an advanced driver assistance system.

The big picture: The crashes included in the dataset were shown to have deployed driver assistance technologies at least 30 seconds before the crash occurred, per the NHTSA press release.

Honda saw the second-highest number of crashes with advanced driver-assistance systems after Tesla, with 90 crashes.
NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff said in the press release that collecting the data was an "important step" in helping prevent the number and severity of crashes.

Be smart: Advanced driver assistance systems help cars steer, stay in their lane and brake in emergencies, Axios' Joann Muller writes.

Some drivers using cars running with automated driver-assistance features become less vigilant behind the wheel, or drive more aggressively, when they think the system is backing them up.

State of play: Last August, the NHTSA opened a formal investigation into Tesla's Autopilot function after a series of crashes.

The NHTSA this month upgraded the investigation to an engineering analysis, which is a required step before the regulator decides to issue a recall of the vehicles or the software behind the advanced driver assistance system, Axios' Jacob Knutson writes.

Go deeper: Cars could get more dangerous before they get safer

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Teslas made up nearly 70% of assisted-driving crashes in last year

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