In a bold statement on the safety of Tesla and other brands’ partially automated driving systems, the country’s foremost experts on vehicle safety say that driver-assist tech offers no safety advantages over what nearly every new vehicle has.
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The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, IIHS, has just announced that it will establish new standards of safety for active driver assist systems, which it calls partially automated driving systems. IIHS makes clear that the group, which conducts the most comprehensive safety testing of American-market vehicles, feels that these systems are not safe as they stand today.
Partially automated driving systems help a driver to control the vehicle in which they are traveling. These systems have been marketed to the public, particularly by Tesla, as “full self-driving” and “autopilot” systems. These systems can do things such as speed up and slow down the vehicle according to traffic conditions, apply the brakes and then resume speed control of the vehicle, center a vehicle in a lane, and even pass another vehicle without drive involvement. These systems differ from standard cruise control in many ways, and they also differ from adaptive cruise control in important ways.
IIHS will establish safety standards for such systems and include them in its very comprehensive testing protocols. While this is important and somewhat newsworthy, what we found most interesting about this new announcement was that IIHS states that such systems do not add to vehicle safety in any way. Tesla has made claims that its vehicles operate more safely when its Autopilot and Full Self Driving systems are in operation.
Newsweek neatly packaged the claims that Tesla has made in an April 2021 story and attributes the following statements to Elon Musk:
- Essentially, passive Autopilot (car intervenes only when crash probability is high) cuts crashes in half. Active Autopilot (car is driving itself) cuts crashes in half again. Doesn’t mean there are no crashes, but, on balance, Autopilot is unequivocally safer.
- Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching ten times lower chance of accident than the average vehicle.
We reached out to IIHS for clarification on this point to ensure that we didn’t accidentally misquote IIHS or any of its employees. We asked if the group could offer Torque News a statement. IIHS offered this quote from President David Harkey: “There’s no evidence that partially automated driving systems provide any safety benefits over adaptive cruise control alone. Instead, they have the potential for making roads less safe if drivers rely too much on these systems and lose focus or intentionally pay less attention than while driving manually. This is why it’s essential that adequate safeguards are in place.”
Adaptive cruise control is now ubiquitous in the American vehicle marketplace. Nearly every model offers it, and almost all higher-trim levels include it as standard equipment across all brands.
The debate about whether systems like Tesla Full Self Driving offer any safety advantages appears to be reaching a fever pitch. Watch for more on this topic as the two sides reinforce their positions. One thing seems clear: One of these two parties is mistaken.
Here are some prior stories related to Tesla safety:
April 2021: Video of Tesla Model Y On Autopilot With No Driver Demonstrates Need For Government Intervention
March 2021: Another Tesla Hits Another Semi From the Side - This Time It Looks Like a Model Y
August 2020: Tesla Operated By Full Self Crashing System Hits Two Parked First Responder Vehicles - Again
July 2020 - Police: Tesla On Autopilot Hits Not One, But TWO Parked First Responder Vehicles
January 2020: Second Crash In One Month Of A Tesla Into A Parked Firetruck Results In Fatality
December 2019: Tesla Model 3 On Autopilot Hits Yet Another Police Vehicle - Why Won't They Stop?
August 2018: Third Tesla Crashes Into Back of Firetruck - That's Four Crashes Into Emergency Vehicles This Year
May 2018: Another Tesla On Autopilot Hits Another Emergency Vehicle - You Can't Make This Stuff Up
January 2018: Tesla Police Blotter News - Tesla Driver Hits Parked Firetruck - Blames Autopilot
John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can follow John on Twitter, and connect with him at Linkedin.
Image of Tesla Model Y screen by John Goreham.
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