Tesla Says AI Driving Is Seven Times Safer Than Human Drivers
Tesla has published updated Full Self-Driving (FSD) safety statistics, showing that its AI-driven system significantly outperforms human drivers across every major metric.
Billions of Miles Reveal a Clear Advantage for AI
According to Tesla’s latest 12-month safety data, vehicles operating with FSD engaged experience one serious accident every 5.1 million miles. By comparison, Tesla vehicles driven manually but with active safety systems record one accident every 2.3 million miles. The U.S. national average is considerably lower, with a serious crash occurring roughly every 702,000 miles. These numbers underline the widening safety gap between automated and human-controlled driving.A Conservative Methodology Designed to Avoid Bias
Tesla highlights that its accounting method is extremely strict. Any incident that triggers airbag deployment or causes a speed change over 8 km/h within 150 milliseconds is automatically logged as an accident. Even if the driver takes manual control within the final five seconds before impact, the crash is still counted under FSD. This approach eliminates the possibility of overstating AI performance and ensures transparency in safety reporting.Human Error Dominates Accident Categories
Importantly, Tesla does not determine who is at fault in its reports. All collisions are counted equally, including rear-end impacts caused by other drivers—an accident type that accounts for more than 35% of Tesla crashes. By including events outside of FSD’s control, the company aims to present a realistic picture of real-world driving conditions. Despite this conservative methodology, the system still outperforms human drivers by a wide margin.Potential to Save Tens of Thousands of Lives
Based on Tesla’s calculations, widespread adoption of autonomous driving could prevent more than 32,000 deaths and 1.9 million injuries annually in the United States alone. The company argues that as AI improves, these numbers will continue shifting in favor of automated driving. While FSD remains a controversial technology, the data strongly suggests that intelligent systems are quickly becoming safer than human operators.Editorial Team — CoinBotLab