Tesla’s data library should help prove statistically the safety of its vehicles, giving it significant advantage over peers in the regulatory approval process. Tesla’s customer-owned fleet drives more than 120 million miles per day, and over one million miles per day in FSD.[8] In contrast, in their multi-year lifetimes, Cruise and Waymo have reached just one million miles each driven on public roads with no one behind the wheel. Moreover, accident statistics suggest that Tesla already has achieved performance superior to human drivers. According to our research, adjusting for its use on surface streets only, Tesla’s FSD is 5X safer than a manually driven Tesla.
Source: ARK Investment Management LLC, 2023. Based on data from Tesla, Inc. 2023a; Tesla, Inc. 2023b; Tesla, Inc. 2023c; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2023; Bureau of Transportation Statistics 2023.
Note: Both the Non-Autopilot accident rate, labeled “Manually Driven Tesla” in the graph, and the national average were adjusted to surface-street only accident rates using the ratio of percent of accidents to miles driven on surface streets, including an adjustment for auto-pilot miles, which ARK estimates were ~10% of miles driven in Teslas. Note that this a global statistic and the US average is likely higher. Chart FSD data as of March 1, 2023. Five important caveats to consider: (1) a driver might disengage FSD in the most difficult driving moments, which could boost miles per accident; (2) FSD will not work in extreme weather; (3) while passenger cars make up the majority of vehicles in crashes and total miles, the national statistics are not confined to passenger cars; (4) our comparison includes all crashes, fatal and non-fatal; (5) The national average includes vehicles that do not have active safety features such as auto emergency braking, which are now standard on all new cars, including Teslas.
Article source: https://www.ark-invest.com/articles/valuation-models/arks-tesla-price-target-2027
Statistics source: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/72943 and https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/automated-vehicles-safety
