A new study says that Tesla has the highest accident rate of any automaker. This comes just a few days after the company had to recall almost all of the cars it had ever made because of safety issues with the Autopilot feature. LendingTree, a big marketplace for cars and mortgages, only looked at crash statistics as part of their investigation. The poll only says that Teslas crashes more often than any other brand, but it doesn’t say why. LoanTree says that between November 14, 2022, and November 14, 2023, there were 23.54 accidents involving Teslas for every 1,000 users. Ram (22.76) and Subaru (20.90) were the only other brands with more than 20 occurrences per 1,000 users. As for its crash rate, it had the second-highest incident rate at 31.13, only behind Ram (32.90). What makes incident rates different from accident rates is that they include moving violations, DUIs, and other traffic crimes. Part of the reason Tesla has such a high crash rate could be the Autopilot and Autosteer features. Last year, both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Justice began investigations into Tesla. The NHTSA found that 322 frontal and other accidents were caused by Autopilot failure. It was way too easy for drivers to give up control of Tesla’s Autopilot and let it run on its own, as the recall above shows. Tesla said that a new over-the-air update will fix the problem. Does LendingTree’s story make it sound like Tesla drivers are the worst in the world? That’s not quite right. Does the study bring up a serious problem that the carmaker and safety officials should be aware of? No question about it. To be clear, the study doesn’t just worry Tesla. BMW almost triples the number of DUIs that people in second place get.
