Elon: Autopilot miles appear to be twice as safe as manually driven miles

Tesla CEO Elon Musk just tweeted saying based on Tesla's data "Autopilot miles appear to be twice as safe as manually driven miles."

This morning Tesla Owners Silicon Valley tweeted and wrote "I drive 65 miles a day on autopilot M-F. Please stop telling me it doesn't work and it isn't safe. My commute is forever changed and Tesla has created a life hack. The awareness is just a matter of time before everyone becomes a Teliever."

To this tweet a user named Bill Bins replied, writing "I love how every time there is so much as a fender bender involving Tesla's Autopilot, it's national news. Meanwhile there is daily carnage from manually driven cars. Autopilot doesn't need to be 100% safe. If it's 30% safer than reg driving, thousands of lives will be saved."

Since Tesla Owners Silicon Valley had actually tagged Elon Musk in the tweet, surprisingly, about 5 minutes ago Musk replied and wrote "Based on our data, Autopilot miles appear to be twice as safe as manually driven miles, and we expect this to improve further."

This is very interesting. I would like to know if NHTSA has any data on this.

But Elon Musk's Autopilot safety claims are apprently not suppored by studies. Not that he says "based on our data."

Jessica Lessin, the founder and the Editor-in-Chief of The Information replied and wrote "we tried to fact-check Elon Musk's claims about autopilot safety, plus spoke to government agencies, plus researchers who have tried to do the same. The verdict: no one had verified them yet and Tesla wouldn't point to any research that does." She then referred to this story published in the Information and titled "Studies Don’t Support Elon Musk’s Autopilot Safety Claims."

What is your verdict on Autopilot's safety?

Watch: Don't Trust Tesla Autopilot with Lane Mergers, Say This Model 3 Owner (and subscribe to our video channel for more)

Armen Hareyan is the editor of Torque News and you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

Also watch our previous video showing how Model 3 helped Tesla to take the sales lead from Chevy Volt. What do you think the Gigafactory in Shanghai will be completed and how will it effect Tesla's performance?